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THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



EH 



KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 



BY JAMES DOUGLAS, Esq. 



FIRST AMERICAN, FROM 

THE SECOND EDINBURGH EDITION. 



!Q|artforir: 

PUBLISHED BY COOKE AND CO. 
AND PACKARD AND BUTLER. 

1830. 



Prom the Rev. Professor Goodrich, of Yale College, and the Rev. Mr. BacoL. 
of New Haven. 

u In the preceding recommendation, we entirely concur." 

CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, 
LEONARD BACON. 
New Haven, Sept, 13, 1830. 

. From the Rev. Dr. Humphrey, President of Amherst College, Mass 

" Having had some opportunity to examine Mr. Dou- 
glas's book, I concur with the Professors at Princeton, in 
the above recommendation." 

H. HUMPHREY. 

Amherst College, Sept. 29, 1830. 

From the Rev. Dr. Mathews. Pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, in the 
city of New York. 

• ; Mr. Douglas's < Hints on Missions,' proved him to be 
a man of extraordinary mind ; and his later labours con- 
firm his claim to that character. He shows himself well 
acquainted with History, Philosophy, and Religion ; and 
the results to which he leads his readers, do him credit as 
a scholar and a Christian. It is but seldom that we meet 
with a writer so deeply imbued with a spirit of philan- 
thropy, and whose views are, at the same time, so co-ex- 
tensive with the intellectual and moral wants of the world. 
The publishers of the present volume have done a valuable 
service to the community, by issuing it from the American 
press." 

J. M. MATHEWS. 

New York, Sept. 2d, 1830. 

From the Rev. A. Potter, Rector of St. Paul's Church, Boston, to the Publishers. 

" Gentlemen, — I have to thank you for a copy of the 
work of Mr. Douglas, recently published at your press. 



I had some previous acquaintance with its merits, but feel 
grateful for any circumstance which has served to recall 
it to my attention. Among the various works devoted to 
this subject, I have seen none so well adapted to the 
present state of the world, nor any breathing a more en- 
larged, enlightened and philanthropic spirit. There are 
points, certainly, to which exception may be taken, but it 
seems to me no less certain that few persons can peruse 
it without receiving a new impulse to benevolent exertion, 
and having new conceptions of the means and end of such 
exertions. I earnestly hope that the work may have, 
especially among the Directors of our literary and reli- 
gious institutions, an extensive circulation." 

A. I'dl I i 
Boston, Oct. I.s7, 1830. 



From iIm' Re*. -J- Wheeler, of Windsor, Vermont 

Mr. Wheeler wa9 favoureJ, while in Scotland, with ■ personal acquaintance with Mr. DougUu, 
at his re»idence, about forty milet from Edinburgh. 

"Mr. Douglas possesses unusual originality, indepen- 
dence, and comprehensiveness of mind, and is considered 
by his acquaintance as a man of vast knowledge. In his 
work on 'The Advancement of Society." there is a com- 
bination of thought, the materials of which, gathered 
from the whole field of learning, display a singularly 
various and intimate acquaintance with books, and a power 
to collect their scattered rays of light, and bring them to 
a focus, which may serve to conduct us onward to import- 
ant results. These traits of mind are fed by a deep foun- 
tain of wide-spreading benevolence, which is kept in 
constant exercise by the great truths of Redemption. 
He delights in high and blissful hopes concerning the 



human race, without forgetting the moral obstacles in the 
way, or shrinking from their frowning magnitude. The 
habits of his life are formed very much in reference to 
the controlling power of his piety, and the peculiarity of 
his mind, living with unusual freedom from ostentation for 
one of his extensive landed estate, and ancestral connec 
tions. He studies religious subjects because he loves 
them, and delights tn the elevated and peaceful character 
they produce ; and is much interested in the extension of 
some form of religious instruction more thoroughly Biblical 
than is now common," 

J WHEELER. 
Windsor, Ft. Sept. 3rf, 1830. 

From the Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, late Principal of the American Asylum for the 
Education of the Deaf and Dumb. 

No one can read the writings of Douglas, without feel- 
ing that he is in the presence of a Master Spirit of the age. 
A devout disciple of Jesus Christ, he adds another tri- 
umph to the glories of the Cross, and infidelity itself must 
acknowledge that the humbling doctrines of the gospel, 
ruling the heart and directing the conduct, may be cher- 
ished by a mind that genius, taste, literature, science and 
philosophy, all contribute to refine, to elevate, and to adorn. 

In this point of view, if in no other, the work of Douglas 
on " The Advancement of Society in Knowledge and 
Religion," deserves an extensive patronage in this country. 
It is peculiarly adapted to that class of readers, who, with 
some sceptical doubts with regard to the truth of Revela- 
tion, have contracted a fastidious disgust of its doctrines 
and precepts, as if they could exist only in the breasts of 
the timid and the abject, and produce in the mind and the 



life nothing but what is low and contemptible. The very 
pages of Douglas prove that the contrary of all this is 
true, and that the Christian, in his studies, his hopes, his 
wishes, his pursuits, his labours, his enterprises, his pro- 
jects, — has before him objects of thought, of affection, 
and of effort (even in this world, in connection with the 
domestic circle, with civil society, with the political insti- 
tutions of his own and other countries, and with the great 
interests of mankind,) which are stamped with every 
essential characteristic of intellectual and moral sublimity 
and beauty. 

What a glorious and cheering light is shed by the 
Gospel on the destinies of our world ! In this light, look 
down the vista of futurity, as drawn by the pencil of our 
Author, and compare it with the fantastic dreams in which 
free-thinking philosophers have indulged, and with the 
visionary prospective which they have essayed to sketch 
of the triumph of human reason, and of the perfectability 
of human natnre ! What a contrast, and how honorable 
to Christianity ! 

The lofty thought, the manly freedom, the true repub- 
lican spirit, the utter abhorrence of all that is inconsistent 
with the proper rights of man, the rejection of any, the 
least, dependence on the power of the St<i(c, for the ad- 
vancement and support of religion, the admiration of our 
0W4i political institutions, the affection exhibited towards 
our country, the anticipations of its increasing prosperity 
and ability to become, among the nations, the great Exem- 
plar of what a nation ought to be and to do ; all these 
striking characteristics of Douglas, together with his truly 
finished, eloquent, and often impassioned style, — his 
wonderful powers of generalization, — his prophetic views. 



(visionary as some of them may appear to be, yet many 
of them, hereafter to reeeive the sanction of a literal 
fulfilment,) his mastery over the mind of the reader, 
kindling new trains of thought, and anticipations of hope, 
and breathings of charity, and projects of doing good, 
and the plans and the means of their accomplishment :— * 
these recommend the work not only to the attentive peru- 
sal, but to the diligent study, of all who feel for the pros- 1 
perity of their country, for the progress of the Redeemer's 
kingdom, and for the welfare of their fellow men. 

T. H. GALLAUDET- 
Hartford, Oct. 13tfc, 1830. 



CONTEXTS, 



PART FIRST. 

THE PAST. 

Page 

1. Progress of Society. — 2. Opinions of the Ancients. — 5 

3. Defect of Materials. — 4. Early condition of Man- 
kind. — 5. First Monarchies. — 6. Grecian Republics — 
7. Rome.— 8. Saracens.— 9. Gothic Race. — 10. Mod- 
ern Europe. — 11. Summary. — 12. Defect of Terms. — 
13. Complex Movement of Society. — 14. Advancement 
not Necessary but Providential. — 15. Ancient and Mod - 
em Action of Society. — 16. Removal of Impediments. 
— 17. New Social Order in America.— 18. Conclusion. 

PART SECOND. 

THE FUTURE. 

1. New Era of Society. — 2. Voluntary Association. — 7 i 
3. Supplies the Prima Philosophia. — 4. Objections to it. 
— 5. The Survey of Science. — 6. Review of the Past. 
— 7. Scientific Travellers. — 8. General Correspondence. 
— 9. Improved Elements or Science. — 10. Improved 
Method of Science. — 11. Improvement of the Arts. — 
12. Improvement of Life. — 13. General Society. — 
14. Its Influence over Government — 15. Its Influence 
over Europe. — 16. Advantages of Science to Religion. 
17. Advantages of Religion to Science. 

PART THIRD. 

THE ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION AT HOME. 

1. Difference in the Condition of Jews and Christians. — 136 
2. Advantages and Disadvantages of the Latter. — 



IV. CONTENTS. 

Pi 

3. Utility of Association. — 4. Best Form of Society.— 
5. District Division. — 6. General Correspondence. — 
7. Newspapers. — 8. Reviews. — 9. Schools. — 10. Li- 
braries. — 11. Home Missions. — 12. Bible Society. — 
13. Advancement of Religion at Home and Abroad, 
mutual. 

PART FOURTH. 

ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION ABROAD. 

1. Map of the World.— 2. Rise of False Religions.— II 
3. Nominal Christendom. — 4. Mohammedan Countries. 
— 5. Eastern Asia. — 6. Central Africa. — 7. The Jews. 
— 8. Christianity Universal. — 9. England the Centre 
of Action. — 10. System. — 11. Economy. — 12. Super- 
intendance. — 13. Native Agency. — 14. Education. — 
15. English Language. — 16. Translations. — 17. Colo- 
nies. — 18 Conclusion. 

PART FIFTH. 

TENDENCY OF THE AGE. 

1. Voluntary and Involuntary Changes. — 2. Philosophy 272 
of Charity. — 3. Augmented Power of Moral Instru- 
ments. — 4. Increasing Improvement of Society. — 5. Im- 
provement of Governments. — 6. Revolution in Opinion. 
■ — 7. Classic Republics. — 8. Gothic Kingdoms. — 9. Uni- 
versal Form. — 10. Public Opinion. — 11. Europe. — 
12. America. — 13. Universal Prevalence of Religion 
and Knowledge. 

Notes, . . . . .297 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION 



PART FIRST. 
PROGRESS OF SOCIETY. 

I. "One generation passetli away, and anotfaei 
generation cometh ; but the earth abideth for 
ever." Is the change in its generations the only 
change in society ? Are the actors alone renewed, 
and the same drama of life for ever repeated \ Or 
does each succeeding generation, standing on the 
grave of their forefathers, rise to a higher vantage 
ground, as the oaks of the wilderness in succession 
strike deeper roots, and grow more flourishing', 
over the dust of their predecessors ? 

It is not many ages since Hakewell wrote his 
learned Apology, to show that the moderns were 
not left so destitute either of hope or of providence, 
as utterly to despair of emulating the ancients. 
Still shorter is the interval, since Milton had his 
misgivings as to the coldness of the climate, and 
lateness of the age for an epic poem, though in 
this there is more than meets the general ear. 
1 



6 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

Now, the tide has set in with an opposite current, 
and "the present enlightened age" regards itself 
with as much self-complacency, and the past with 
as much contempt, as if, like Love in Aristophanes, 
it had been hatched from the egg of Night, and all 
of a sudden had spread its radiant wings over the 
primeval darkness. 

OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENTS. 

II. The ancients, as they are beforehand with 
the moderns in most of their disputes, rival them 
also in the discrepancy of their tenets upon this 
head ; for of the three opinions respecting society, 
that it is progressive, stationary, or retrograde, 
each was defended and illustrated by some power- 
ful sect of philosophy. 

That society is retrograde was always the fa- 
vourite and most prevalent side of the question ; 
the creeds of all nations teem with recollections of 
men having fallen from a higher state of felicity, 
of earth being blended with heaven, and of that 
golden age, when humanity lived near to the gods, 
and held frequent and familiar converse with the 
immortals. This opinion may be styled the my- 
thological, since it is interwoven with the recol- 
lections of the remotest antiquity, blended with 
the light of the heroic and fabulous ages, and 
wrought into all the various fictions which diversify 
the legends of polytheism. It is carried to the 
greatest height in the Hindoo writings, but more or 
less it has prevailed among all nations, and has 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. i 

been handed down with an increase of conviction 
and fresh arguments, from the respect which 
learners bear to their teachers, — stamped with the 
reverence which the Grecians paid to their Egyp- 
tian masters, — the Romans to the Grecians. — and 
the middle ages to the Romans. 

The opinion which advocates the advancement 
of society, received its origin, or its strength, from 
the recorded rise of the Grecian States, and the 
broken traces of their ancient history, and may 
therefore be termed the historical : it rests on the 
tradition of the ancient inhabitants having been 
tamed by Orpheus, and the other tuneful legislators 
of Greece, and reclaimed from the condition ol 
savages among the woods, and from a subsistence 
upon acorns, to a social existence, under laws, and 
in cities: this opinion received new support from I 
second source, — the Atomic Philosophy, which, as 
it deduced the intelligence of each individual from 
the sum and record of his past impressions, so it 
deduced the national mind from the experience of 
the individuals who composed it ; discarding at 
once the inspiration of the early ages, and their higher 
illumination. 

That society is stationary, may be termed the 
Atheistical Opinion, since it upheld the eternity of 
the species on the same grounds on which it up- 
held the eternity of the world ; for observing that 
what once was sea had become dry land, and that 
the earth in return was gradually swallowed up by 
the waves, it concluded that the continent and the 



a ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

ocean were interchangeably destroyed and repro- 
duced, and that the parts of the great system alone 
were fluctuating, while the whole remained fixed 
and for ever. Corresponding to these apparent 
changes, and this real stability of nature, it observ- 
ed new wonders of art rising to perfection in one 
quarter, compensating, and only compensating, for 
the decay of equally numerous and admirable mo- 
numents in another, and thence concluded that the 
sciences, ever seeking for new worshippers, rather 
changed their abodes, than received any accession 
to the number of their temples. Thus binding 
alike the natural and the moral world in the same 
iron chain of necessity, it viewed all the move- 
ments of the universe as alternating between fixed 
and narrow limits of progress and decay, and re- 
peating the same rounds through the endless lapse 
of time. 

These three opinions, which might appear to ex- 
haust the subject, are severally insufficient, for the 
movement of society is too complicated to be 
solved by a single principle ; however varying and 
opposite, they are all partially founded in truth, and 
all, taken in their utmost extent, and viewed sepa- 
rately, lead to error. At one and the same time 
there is a progressive, stationary, and retrograde 
tendency in society, as shall afterwards be pointed 
out, and also within what limits each tendency ex* 
erts itself. 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. \) 

DEFECT OF MATERIALS. 

III. There is no good history of the progress of 
society. The sketch of Condorcet is undeserving 
of minute examination. Some valuable thoughts 
were furnished from the conversation or writings 
of Turgot, but exaggerated to support an untenable 
theory. The work of Condorcet is the image of 
his mind — vast and vague — feeble yet aspiring — 
containing some noble views amid a mass of misre- 
presentations, discoloured by a hatred of all reli- 
gion verging upon insanity — undervaluing, from 
ignorance, the past, and shaping to its own imprac- 
ticable wishes the clouds of futurity. (A.) 

We have not even the rude materials for such a 
work, either in an exact or complete history of the 
particular branches of science, of the origin of 
languages, or of the state of the ancient world. 
Literary history, though recommended by Bacon, 
has made small progress, except among the disci- 
ples of Kant ; and they are either systematic or 
visionary ; seeing every thing in antiquity through 
the mist of some recent theory, reversing the mira- 
cle of tongues, and making men of every age and 
clime speak with a truly Teutonic accent ; or when 
freed from system, caught by remote resemblances, 
and puerile or monstrous analogies, and too fre- 
quently preferring the weaker evidence to the 
stronger, as leading to the conclusion the most 
likely to elevate and surprise. (B.) 

1* 



10 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

Extremes meet, and etymology, where of all 
studies the evidence is the weakest, and mathema- 
tics, where it is the strongest, seem alike to unfit 
their followers for balancing opposing probabilities, 
yet the want of a rational work on the origin and 
connexion of languages is necessary to be supplied 
before a complete account of the progress in so- 
ciety can be obtained. (C.) 

Ancient history, on the other hand, has either 
been received in gross, or totally rejected, and the 
art has not yet been discovered of separating its ore 
from its dross, the fragments of truth from the load 
of fables which conceal them. 

The chronology of the earliest nations is dilated 
into an enormous and impossible antiquity, while 
heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, and other 
equally real personages, live and reign for long 
astronomical periods, over happy and prosperous 
nations, and the train of these figurative sovereigns 
is increased by the artifice of making the contem- 
poraneous kings who reigned at the same time, in 
the same country, before it was formed into one 
empire, follow each other in a long line of succes- 
sive dynasties. (D.) 

To this chronological list of names, in the obli- 
vion of the real events of history, were appended 
the traditions current among the vulgar ; narrative 
too far transformed into fable to be again easily 
recognised in its just lineaments ; romantic, impro- 
bable, or ludicrous, as the wonder, misconception? 
or buffoonery of the narrators prevailed. Such 



IS KNOWLEDGE AMD RELIGION. 11 

are the accounts which Herodotus has transmitted 
.ting the monarchies of Egypt and the East. 
vague and distorted rumours of past events pre- 
serving, indeed, an air of truth for three or four 
generations backwards, and then lost in an inextri- 
cable labyrinth : less trust-worthy records than the 
songs of pensioned and flattering bards, and bear- 
ing the same relation to real characters and actions, 
that the tales of the Arabian Nights do to the His- 
tory of Haroun Alraschid. 

The difficulties attending the varying accounts 
of the elder Cyras, together with the opportunities 
of information which the Greeks possessed, and the 
interest which they had in the affairs of Persia. 
sufficiently indicate how unsafe a guide profane 
history is. when it attempts to follow tradition be- 
yond the limits of a few generatio: 

EARLY CONDITION OF MANKIND. 

IV. Amid the obscurity of these fables and in- 
stencies, the books of Moses shed a solitarv 
light : and. independent of the arguments for their 
inspiration, earn- with them internal evidence of 
their authenticity, and of their containing within 
their brief notices, all that can be known of the 
earliest condition of man. 

The Mosaic records secure us from an error into 
which philosophers, who trust more to their own 
conjectures than to the Bible, have generally fallen. 
It is requisite for clearness and precision to reduce 
even* thing to its simplest elements, and from its 



12 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



least modified state, to enumerate the changes it 
undergoes, and the additions it receives. But what 
is allowable in a work of which the sole aim is sim- 
plicity, may be very erroneous when considered as 
matter of fact. And though, in a treatise which 
accommodates itself to an arbitrary method, and 
not to the truth of events, mankind may be repre- 
sented as passing from the occupation of hunters 
to that of shepherds, and then from pasturage to 
tillage, and a life in cities, yet the error is great, if 
we mistake the process of our own minds for the 
progress of the human race, and imagine that men 
must first have existed as savages, because the sa- 
vage state stands at the head of our own artificial 
system. 

And yet this misapprehension is the sole support 
of a theory which is alike refuted by the evidence 
of revelation, and by the situation of the ancient 
world. From the sea of China to the German 
ocean, tribes, too rude to have tamed the wild 
animals for their own use, were in possession of 
domestic cattle ; and beyond the bounds of civili- 
zation the pastoral state alike prevailed in Asia, 
Africa, and Europe. The only exceptions strength- 
en the general rule : some hunters, scattered over 
ranges of mountains ; some fishers, amid wide in- 
tersecting lakes, or some tribes deprived of their 
cattle by the severity of the climate towards the 
Icy Sea. In this respect, the new world is contrast- 
ed with the old, and in this very contrast affords an 
additional proof that the pastoral state has preceded 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 13 

the savage, since its savage inhabitants, with the 
strong marks of their Scythian descent, will be 
generally allowed to have sprung from a race in 
possession of numerous herds, and the only assign- 
able cause of the difference between the hunters of 
America and their pastoral ancestors of Upper Asia, 
is the intervening sea, with the want of barks of 
sufficient burden to transport their cattle. 

The appearances of society, over both the old 
and the new continent, exactly tally with the effects 
wilich must have resulted from the dispersion of 
mankind, as described by Moses ; a dispersion which 
took place after a common sojourn, for a length of 
years, in a country favourable for the increase of 
their flocks ; and after having had long access to 
the arts and knowledge of a still earlier race, by 
the long lives of the patriarchs, who formed a con- 
necting link between the antediluvian and postdilu_ 
vian world. The light, which spread over the earth, 
may be traced to the plains of Babylon as its cen- 
tre, and the barbarism and the depression of the 
different tribes of men is shaded more deeply, ac- 
cording to their distance from the parent seats of 
mankind, and the difficulties of their journey. 

It is from this one fount of emanation that the 
first vestiges of thought and improvement are 
derived, which are common to all nations and lan- 
guages ; and which have been assigned, even by 
infidel philosophers, to one primitive race, the stock 
whence the many families of the earth have sprung ; 
who have left behind them resemblances and affini- 



14 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

ties in the remotest languages and recollections, 
however disguised by fable and mythology, which 
refer to a period when all the earth had one common 
history and interest. 

Thus the time which elapsed between the deluge 
and the dispersion of mankind, must be looked 
upon as the first period of civilization. No doubt? 
owing to the early invention of arts among the 
descendants of Cain, and the long life of the ante- 
diluvians, so favourable to the cultivation of science* 
great advances would be made, and commanding 
heights of knowledge would be reached, by men* 
who could not complain, like Theophrastus, that 
nature had denied them that length of days for 
cultivating their reason, which she bestowed upon 
many irrational animals ; but it is not by the mass 
of knowledge that existed before the deluge, but 
by the remnants that were preserved in the ark, 
that aftertimes have been affected and benefited. 
To form some conception of the change which an- 
cient science would undergo in the hands of the 
postdiluvians, we may imagine what would be the 
fate of a varied and copious language, which, after 
abounding in works of every character, came to 
exist only in the speech of few individuals ; how 
the additions by which it had been enriched would 
fall into disuse, and the language itself would re- 
turn to its first rudiments and primitive simplicity, 
while the derivatives would occasionally remain, 
and the roots from which they had sprung be for- 
gotten. The same would it fare with science, re- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 15 

duced to the same circumstances, the higher and 
more speculative parts would be forgotten, the ap. 
plication might be retained without the principle, 
and the elements might rest behind as witnesses of 
the perfection to which knowledge had been brought, 
and of the advanced state of the sciences from 
which they had been separated. 

Possessed of the relics of ancient language and 
of ancient knowledge, a new population rapidly 
multiplied in the land where nature had planted the 
olive and Noah the vine, and wandered, with their 
increasing flocks, beneath that serene sky where 
the stars were first classed into constellations, with- 
out fixed habitation in the country of their transient 
pilgrimage, previous to their spreading anew the 
tide of life over the dispeopled earth, and rearing 
in the wilderness once more the dwellings of men. 

It is this period of universal intercommunity 
which has given an indissoluble bond of connection 
to the far scattered family of man. and irresistibly 
carries back whatever holds of high antiquity to 
the common origin of the species. Among the 
remotest races, dissevered by vast ages and unna- 
vigated oceans, fragments of language, tradition, 
and opinion are found, which piece in together, and 
when united with every remnant from every dis- 
tant region, almost recompose that body of trans- 
mitted recollections, which, surviving an earlier 
civilization, and an almost universal catastrophe, 
was separated and dispersed over the earth, by the 
separation and dispersion of mankind. 



16 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



FIRST MONARCHIES. 



V, A second period of advancement in civili- 
zation was that of the early monarchies. Egypt, 
Chaldea, India, and China, have each pretensions 
to superior antiquity, and a claim to invention ; and 
the claim of each may be allowed. Their common 
nature and common origin sufficiently account for 
coincidences which have too hastily been judged 
certain marks of imitation. Yet if the question 
were still urged, what country had the best claim 
to the highest antiquity, that honour might be allow- 
ed to Egypt. It is certain mankind never adopt 
improvements, much less invent them, without the 
pressure of an immediate want, and a ready facility 
of removing it. Where the chase is abundant, 
and the supply of game sure, no tribe of hunters 
will ever be at the labour, or use the foresight of 
rearing animals tame, and providing a domestic 
stock. Where the pastoral country is sufficient for 
the unlimited increase of their cattle, no tribe of 
herdsmen will ever make agriculture an object of 
first-rate importance. And thus, at every step of 
their progress, men are goaded forward by their 
wants, and incited and allured by the prospect of 
supply. It will be readily admitted, that Egypt is 
the country where these wants would be soonest 
felt in succession, and most easily removed. Even 
had the first inhabitants been savages, the vale of 
the Nile is so narrow, that the beasts of chase would 
be quickly thinned, and animals for domestic pur- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 17 

poses caught and tamed. The habitable country 
being extremely limited in extent, agriculture would 
soonest be thought of, and most easily practised, 
since the Nile itself does the work of the plough 
and the harrow, manures the ground, covers the 
seed, and leaves but the work of harvest for the 
husbandmen, and is the true Ceres and Triptolemus 
of antiquity, the first indicator of culture, the in- 
ventor of tillage, and the bestower of corn. It is 
there also that men, from the nature of the country, 
must first have lived in towns, crowded upon the 
few elevated spots which were superior to the in- 
undation of the Nile, and which, rising like so many 
cities from the waves, reminded the early Grecian 
traveller of his native islands amid the Egean sea. 
Hence also the Nile, by leaving a water communi- 
cation alone between the different towns, made the 
Egyptians the earliest sailors ; and the barks, which 
opened to them the only path to the neighbouring 
cities, found, by following the course of the river, 
an easy entrance into the Mediterranean sea ; and 
though, after their early discoveries and colonies, 
this art amongst them altogether declined, and pass- 
ed to another nation ; yet the Phoenicians, as they 
had the first lunt of an alphabet in the Egyptian 
hieroglyphics, so they saw the earliest navy, in the 
vessels, which with a full sail, and a north wind 
were ascending the stream, and in return, gently 
floating down the current of the Nile. 

The priority of Egyptian civilization to that of 
the Indians, might be evinced either from ancient 
2 



18 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

history, or from ancient monuments ; from the di- 
rection of the earliest commerce, or the planting of 
the earliest colonies. (E.) 

The prior antiquity of India rests upon the sus- 
picions and partial authority of its own writings, 
themselves of suspected antiquity. The antiquity 
of Egypt is vouched for by the oldest authenticat- 
ed writers extant, the Hebrews and the Greeks. 
Again, there are no monuments in Egypt which 
need the explanation of having been reared by 
Indian architects; though there are remains in 
India which appear to indicate an African origin. 
It may be added that the monuments of Egypt 
alone are covered with hieroglyphics, which carry 
them back to an age, and a literature anterior to the 
invention of alphabetic characters. Ancient com- 
merce was founded upon the riches of India, and 
the wants of the West. Egypt held out no induce- 
ment to the Hindoos to emigrate ; its narrow valley 
was soon filled with population, and was surrounded 
by forbidding deserts; but the wide, and to the 
ancients, interminable regions of India, with the 
romantic fables of wealth and wonder attached to 
them, might easily have induced Egyptian emigrants 
to leave the scorched and barren shores of the Red 
Sea, and embark in some of those fleets which 
were ever steering towards the treasures of the 
East. With respect to colonies, those which pro- 
ceeded from India, and have been scattered over 
the islands of the Indian Ocean, cannot compare 
either in antiquity or celebrity with those of the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 19 

Egyptians who commenced the civilization of 
Greece previous to the period of written history. 
All this might be proved at length, but this proof is 
not necessary; we should consider as equally in 
error those who would borrow the civilization of 
tjie Egyptians from the Indians, or those who, on the 
other hand, would make the Egyptians the instruc- 
tors of the Indians in the arts and sciences. It was 
not imitation, but a native impulse, and the concur- 
rence of the same favourable circumstances, which, 
across the most fertile zone of the earth, and from 
the shores of the Yellow Sea to the Mediterranean, 
spread a wide and prosperous civilization. Along 
the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates, the Indus 
and the Ganges, and the great Chinese rivers, the 
nations entered upon a new career, and undertak- 
ings were formed, and works executed, of a vastness 
which throws a shade upon the wonders of follow- 
ing ages. It was there that the productions most 
necessary to existence, which have from thence 
been carried into distant countries, and cultivated 
with so much labour, grew spontaneously, where 
bread corn sprang up like the grass of the field, and 
the earth, in emulation of the golden age, and with 
the fertility of the fabled islands of the west, poured 
forth unbidden food, and renewed a perpetual ban- 
quet. It was there that the pastoral tribes changed 
without effort their manner of life, and with nature 
for their example and instructress, cultivated the 
fruits of the earth which already grew so freely 
around them, into a greater abundance, and reared 



20 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

as if by enchantment cities which, like Babylon, 
rebuilt by the Assyrian for his tributary allies the 
Chaldeans, received whole nations within their am- 
ple walls, and contained and subsisted within their 
ramparted gardens, the population which had been 
previously spread over the waste of the desert. 

The policy and civilization of these nations was 
gigantic, and disproportionate, their aim was vast- 
ness, and their means violence ; the colossal piles 
of their towers and walls were reared by slaves ; 
and these slaves were the vanquished nations, torn 
up by the roots, and transplanted entire into coun- 
tries scarcely known to them by report. Com- 
pared to their works, the buildings of the Romans, 
who possessed a wider empire and enlarged science, 
appear like the edifices of individuals, eclipsed by 
the efforts of kings. Our wonder increases the 
more we consider the only remaining witnesses of 
their power and skill, the masses of mighty ruins, 
or those fabrics which, still enduring, promise to co- 
exist with the earth itself; regarding these, we must 
confess them to have been the master builders of 
the world, and that their structures are as astonish- 
ing as if the dreams of oriental romance had been 
realized, and the genii of the elements had been 
tasked to super-human exertion by the seal of Solo- 
mon, or the talisman of the pre- Adamite kings. 

The resources for such undertakings existed in 
the wealth possessed by the first conquerors. — 
Riches in modern times are diffused through so- 
ciety, and, being nowhere gathered into such a heap 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 21 

as to inspire their possessor with the hope of any 
unusual accomplishment, are spent in elaborate 
trifles, and perishing gratifications, luxury draining 
away into numberless channels, the treasures which 
were in those days exhausted upon some abiding 
monument, which, previous to the invention of let- 
ters, and in the absence of other records, was in- 
tended to keep the name of the erector, and to 
perpetuate his memory. The ancient method of 
war, as it swept along with it the wealth and the 
population of every conquered country, furnished 
hands for these works in the enslaved inhabitants 
and funds in their plundered property. In Egypt, 
on the other hand, which long enjoyed uninter- 
rupted peace, a standing host of labourers was not 
more wasteful to the state than a standing army ; 
the magnitude and magnificence of what was pub- 
lic, was grounded upon the meanness of what was 
private, and the pyramids fitted, according to the 
intention of their authors, to resist the waste of 
time, and to await the expected revolution of na- 
ture, and the new and recommencing series of ex- 
istence, were built by dwellers in houses of clay, 
which were crushed before the moth. 

The acquisition of their knowledge, like the fab- 
ric of their dominion, was forced into a premature 
vigour, and an ill-proportioned greatness ; and be- 
came fixed in the inveteracy of established customs 
and hereditary professions. While on the way to 
knowledge they turned aside to its imaginary sem- 
blance ; with them science throughout was infected 

2* 



22 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

with superstition, -and the corruption of knowledge 
more valued than knowledge itself; arithmetic was 
cultivated less for the utility of figures than for the 
sake of the magical powers attributed to numbers ; 
and the changes in the heavenly bodies were ob- 
served as being casual or predictive of the changes 
in earthly things. 

Very different was the fate of this early civiliza- 
tion to the east and the west of the Indus. It is 
preserved entire in India and China, which remain 
such as they were, at the same point of civilization 
to which they were carried by an impulse given 
them three thousand years ago, with science still 
elementary, and still enslaved to superstition, wor- 
shipping the same idols with the same rites, vene- 
rating the same works, and thinking in the same 
prescribed form of thought. But westward of the 
Indus that ancient mode of manners gave way to 
a new advancement in knowledge, and was scat- 
tered before the arms of Alexander and the arts of 
Greece. The observations made by the Chaldees 
of the heavens, like their observatory, the tower of 
Belus sunk into dust and forgetfulness, and the se- 
crets of Egyptian invention perished with the 
priesthood, to whom they were confined. But the 
elements which were restricted to a prescriptive 
form, or a superstitious use, by the shackles of caste 
and of priesthood, were wrought by the genius of 
a free country, into every variety of fashion, and 
those seeds of improvement which had been 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 23 

checked in their growth in the east, became fruitful 
and luxuriant in another climate. 

GRECIAN REPUBLICS. 

VI. A third period of civilization is the Grecian, 
and the most difficult problem in history is to ac- 
count for its originality and its brilliancy ; how it 
came to differ so widely from that of Egypt and 
Phoenicia from which it sprang ; and why the 
causes that conferred upon it an unrivalled excel- 
lency, never conspired to exalt any other country to 
an r equal eminence. ( F.) 

It is in the history of nations as in the history of 
individuals ; their commencement and their weak- 
ness are passed over in silence ; and it is that very 
weakness which gives power to circumstances to 
form their character, and to impress upon them that 
bias which becomes their destiny. We know not 
the birth or growth of the Grecian states ; we know 
nothing of them till they were matured into fulness 
of strength, till their language was the most har- 
monious, and their poetry the most powerful that 
ever existed. All that relates to Greece lies hid in 
darkness till Homer effulges, like the new created 
light upon the world — a sun without a dawn. 

If, however, in the midst of this obscurity we 
were called to account for the height of Grecian 
genius, we would seek its cause, not in one or two 
circumstances, but in the multiplicity of favourable 
coincidences, each wafting it, as by wave after 
wave, along the brightness of its way ; and we 



24 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

would seek it, not only in the multiplicity, but in the 
harmony of those many combining influences, 
where nothing was jarring, but all united into one 
impulse, and towards one end. 

The first element of national character is the na- 
ture of the country, which acts previously to all other 
influences, and is moulding the mind before the leg- 
islator can form his institutions. This has been 
termed the influence of climate, but incorrectly, 
since the configuration of the land must be taken 
into account, as well as the temperature of the air. 
Doubtless, the country of Greece had an eminent 
influence upon the genius of Greece. All the ad- 
vantages which are possessed by Europe in the va- 
riety and subdivision of its parts, which prevent it 
from being swallowed up in one immense empire, 
and constitute its different peoples distinct na- 
tions, with a common national character, in oppo- 
sition to the empires of Asia, made up of mere 
masses of men who have little in common except 
the coercion of the same despot ; all these advan- 
tages were united in Greece, which possessed the 
concentrated essence of the peculiarities of Europe : 
more intensely European than Europe itself, and 
the Archipelago more Mediterranean than the sea 
of which it is a branch. That mild and beautiful 
sea which allured the first mariners to spread their 
sails over its calm and lake-like waters, by the facil- 
ities which it afforded to commerce and intercourse, 
diffused along its shores the knowledge, with the 
wealth, of the older monarchies ; and as the great 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 25 

rivers had been the seat of eastern civilization, so 
the coasts of the Mediterranean gave birth to the 
new and higher progress of the west. But Greece, 
which is all coast, so indented is it with the sea, and 
so immediately do its narrow valleys open out upon 
the waves, received upon all its borders the fulness 
of that tide of improvement which was rising from 
Tyre to Tarshish, and from Phoenicia to the Atlan- 
tic. Its soil, varied of hill and dale, was among the 
finest of the world, constituting a country rich with- 
out profusion, rich in opposition to the poverty of 
the northern nations whieh reduced them for ages 
to a conflict for existence with overgrown forests 
and a tempestuous sky, yet without that spontan- 
eous profusion which, supplying the first necessities 
of many tropical nations, has prevented them from 
feeling those wants which are the result and the im- 
pulse of an advancing state of society. And its cli- 
mate was the most genial of the temperate zone, 
fervid from its southern site, yet refreshed by alter- 
nate breezes from the mountains and the sea, with 
a sky filled with light, yet variegated with the sudden 
clouds of mountainous and insular regions. 

The first moral influence which arose from this 
happy aspect of the material world was, the passion 
among the Greeks for form and beauty. If human- 
ity had its zones assigned to it as well as the world 
which it inhabits, then the latitude of Greece might 
be esteemed the clime and peculiar residence of the 
beautiful. In the north, the moral sublime predom- 
inates, or the struggle of man with nature ; in the 



26 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

south, the sublime of the infinite, where languid with 
the ardour, and lost in the immensity of nature, he 
gives up the contest, and seeks for absorption in 
the victor. But in the mild and middle regions, 
between these extremes, the mind at peace and in 
harmony, reposes itself upon nature, and is diffused 
in love and admiration over the fair face of creation. 
The climate of Greece seemed fitted for the well 
being of humanity, where the common air was at- 
tempered to delight, and the soul imbibed the same 
sunny hues as the landscape ; where life, careless 
and unlaborious, bore the image of a happier time, 
and man, with the blood of the heroic race still warm 
in his veins, lived to high passions, and infinite aspi- 
rations, above the every-day wants that beset and 
vilify mortality. 

" They were halcyon days of the world, the days of Greece and her heroes. 
" There has been no sunshine so bright since, nor that balminess shed through 

the air; 
«' Men have lost the secret of life — of living iu union with nature. 
" And hence the nectar of life much seldomer moistens their lip. 
" Oh, when shall we see again Greece and her deified heroes ! 
" When that tide of life that flowed so noble and free ; 
"The half- wakened sleepers of marble, the statues of gods, and the godlike, 
11 Alone reflect the past, and retain the celestial likeness, 
"The calm and immortal beauty, the deep and unending repose." 

The languages of the north, it has been observed, 
are those of want, the languages of the south those 
of pleasure ; the civilization of each took the same 
bent — that of the northern nations was, to ward off 
inconveniences, that of the southern nations tended 
directly to enjoyment ; the first sought a shelter in 
secure recesses from the inclemency of the sky, the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 4 27 

other admitted the sun and air into their temples 
and dwellings, and their whole life was transacted 
amid the freshness of nature and in the eye of 
Heaven. The plastic and presiding spirit of sym- 
metry shed its influence over the services of reli- 
gion and the minutest details of ordinary occupa- 
tion — over the proportions of their temples, and 
the shapes of their commonest utensils ; and the 
pitcher which was to bring water from the spring 
was worthy, in its form, of a fountain consecrated 
to the Naiads. 

This passion for the beautiful gave to the Greeks 
a more brilliant mythology, made them reject the 
monster gods of Egypt, and incline to anthropo- 
morphism. Thus men, beholding their own like- 
ness in the objects they worshipped, derived new 
dignity from their deified images, and human na- 
ture itself received an apotheosis when raised to 
tread the summits and to breathe the air of Olym- 
pus: and in return, the gods, from their resemblance 
to man, seemed to their votaries to possess more of 
the milk of human kindness and sympathy than the 
brutish shapes of the east. 

A new influence arose in their passion for mu- 
sic, taking the word in their own enlarged sense, 
as embracing the range of the fine arts, and what- 
ever entered into the service of the muses. In 
this sense it is no fable to say, that the Grecian 
tribes were humanized by music, and that the walls 
of their cities were reared by the songs of their 
poets. So essentially was it interwoven with their 



38 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

social life and civil institutions, that they made the 
study of it synonymous and coincident with civili- 
zation; and it is equally true, that those among 
their tribes who were ignorant of music, and averse 
to it, remained barbarians, and had small share in 
the manners and attainments of their countrymen. 

Their music was only the just and outward ex- 
pression of that internal harmony which dwells 
in minds peopled with all the images of beauty; 
its very simplicity was in its favour ; it did not con- 
sist of difficulties, purposely raised that they may 
be ingeniously solved, but was in its proper place — 
married to immortal verse; and while the poetry 
kept it from running away into an unmeaning in- 
tricacy of sounds, it was to the poetry a perpetual 
breath of inspiration ; and, over and above, it mould- 
ed the primitive and flexible language of Greece 
into its own nature, till it became plastic and ethe- 
real like itself, so as, at every pulse, to swell and 
undulate into the waves of song. 

From the passion for poetry and music proceed- 
ed the power of the poets in moulding the national 
character, and also their numbers, each prince and 
chief having a bard, and holding him in honour. 
During the heroic times, the influence of the bards 
was spread over the whole of life ; their songs ac- 
companied the service of the gods, and the cere- 
mony of the feast; formed the education of the 
young, and animated the older to battle. The only 
parallel to this is found among the Celts, and the 
deeply poetical sensibility it has given to that race, is 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 29 

still manifest and extant in their character, in their 
music, and in the fragments of their poetry. The 
poetry of other nations is more confined to their 
own language, and finds it hard to clear the bounds 
of their country ; but Celtic poetry, as well as the 
Grecian, speaks a language universal as music, is a 
denizen of every region, and intelligible to every 
heart. The Greeks, however, had advantages over 
the Celts ; their bards were less fettered than the 
Druids — not constituting an order, they were free 
from control, and yet were as sacred, being es- 
teemed the priests of the muses. 

In the early times of Greece, before writings 
were common, their religion and their literature 
were embodied in music, and their history was en- 
trusted to the harp, and passed from age to age upon 
the wings of song. Even the rudest of their war- 
riors filled up with the verses of ancient feuds the 
pauses of battle, and only resigned the lance for 
the lyre. 

An influence, highly favourable to the Grecian 
states, consisted in their internationality. Greece, 
indented and mountainous, was severed into many 
states, but all peopled by one primitive race, speak- 
ing the same primitive language. In its many states 
advancing together in the career of civilization, it 
resembled modern Europe ; but the intercommu- 
nion between them was far more intimate and ef- 
fectual, from their lying within a smaller compass, 
and from their speaking the same language ; yet 
not merely one language, but rather many dialects, 

3 



30 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

which had each its peculiar excellence, and left un- 
touched the originality of the rest. A faint exam- 
ple of the advantage of this may be found in the 
Scotch verses of Burns, which had all the freshness 
of youth when the contemporary English writings 
bore strong marks of the decay of age. This va- 
riety of dialects not only gave a freshness and ori- 
ginality to the poetry of the different states of 
Greece, but allowed the riches of all to be trans- 
fused into each, without the strangeness of 
thoughts, which, when translated, are seldom more 
than half naturalized, and exempt from the loss 
which a difference of idiom inevitably occasions. 
From these multiplied sources of abundance arose 
the copiousness of Grecian genius and literature ; 
and hence proceeded many of the advantges 
which Homer possessed over other poets. The 
seeds of poetry are the events of dark ages, in- 
creased by tradition, and expanding with the grow- 
ing imagination of men, who are passing from ob- 
scurity into light. These traditions, after receiving 
the colour of the popular fancy, in their second 
stage, are moulded by the imagination of the ear- 
liest and often forgotten bards ; and after this 
comes the season favourable for the appearance of 
a great genius, who has everything prepared for his 
advent in the workings of the popular mind, and in 
the efforts of his ruder predecessors : and who, by 
giving to the materials already existing their third 
and finished form, appropriates them for ever, and 
perpetuates their glory and his own. Such was 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 31 

Homer, who, like his own Ulysses surveying many 
men and many cities, was enabled to collect the 
popular poetry of his country, — poetry more va- 
ried from the moral situation of Greece than ever 
existed before or after, and filled the inexhausted 

stream of his inspiration from a hundred springs 

It is not wonderful that works which were enriched 
from such various sources, should in their turn be 
a fresh source of endless variety, and that the di- 
versified forms of poetry should be traced to Ho- 
mer, as all the prismatic colours are refracted from 
the light of the sun. 

The narrow bounds of each state made the pres- 
sure of over-population quickly felt, and Grecian co- 
lonies were early spread over the shores of the Me- 
diterranean. These opened out aprospect of distant 
lands to the bards and minds of Greece, and gave 
them a varied scene, presenting nature under new- 
aspects, and life with other manners. The wander- 
ing and adventurous spirit which was fostered by 
the precarious intercourse between the colonies and 
the mother country, lent its own romantic character 
to every region that was visited, and each colony con- 
tributed its additional and peculiar store to the na- 
tional marvels. Egypt and its wonders had from 
the first excited astonishment; and its achiev- 
ments, which were really marvellous, became still 
more so when beheld enlarged through the dimness 
of distance and time. The world owes no small 
share of its fables to the earliest sailors, to whom 
every port presented a paradise, and every storm 



.32 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

preternatural horrors. The mendacity and the su- 
perstition of the Phoenicians furnished to the Greeks 
the first outlines of Elysium and Hades, in those 
meadows enamelled with flowers which receive 
them weary from the waves, and in those volcanic 
mountains, smoking with infernal, and as they be- 
lieved, penal fires. The difficult navigation of the 
Euxine Sea, the dangerous sands of Lybia, the fer- 
tile or fire-worn tracts of southern Italy, and the 
flowery pastures of Sicily, were all fairy land to the 
Greeks, and rich in the materials of poetry. These 
wonders were still more thickly sown towards the 
pillars of Hercules ; and as the period of Grecian 
tables separated the time of genuine history from 
the unknown ages of which all traces were lost, so 
there was an ever- widening horizon, peopled with 
unreal and shadowy shapes, which separated the 
discoveries of the Tyrian mariners from that ocean 
of darkness, into which no sail had ever entered, 
and which was supposed to be beyond the bounds 
of nature and her laws. 

The Grecian states were full of fife, because full 
of liberty ; their freedom proceeded from their di- 
minutive size ; their intersection made them small, 
and their smallness free. For a town is always 
democratical, and the Grecian states consi sted of 
a town and the neighbouring vale. The kings fell 
like ripe fruit without a struggle, and even in the 
kingly period, the states were ruled by eloquence, 
persuasion, and free consent. Their size and free- 
dom made every thing tell— *every man was at his 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 



33 



full speed — to him patriotism and glory, the great 
movers to great actions, were not abstractions but 
sensible realities — his country was the scene before 
his eyes — glory was the daily voice of his country- 
men. 

The time of the world they lived in was in favour 
of the Greeks — it was the morning — the youth of 
existence — hope had received no blight — it was 
«' the sweet hour of prime." All things ministered 
to fancy, not poetry alone, but religion and philoso- 
phy alike partook of its fairy essence, and were in- 
deed its creatures ; and in return furnished its food 
and fed its fires — the mind ran in one current, all 
was " compact of imagination." 

Grecian literature had the advantage of a double 
originality in language and materials. The Greek, 
as a mother language, had vast advantages over 
mixed dialects and lingua-Francas, which, combined 
of ill assorted elements, rest upon feet of iron mix- 
ed with clay ; and, like unorganized substances, can 
only be enlarged by the accession of foreign mate- 
rials, while original languages, having the principle 
of life in them, increase by the extension of their 
own vital energy, and as the skin fits itself to 
every growth of the body, so their flexibility adapts 
itself to every expansion and tone of the national 
mind. Mixed dialects, on the contrary, retain, 
throughout, the propensities of their mulish nature, 
— are stubborn and unproductive ; formed for the 
purposes of barter, they savour of their origin, and 
have a direct tendency to business. 
3" 



34 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

Grecian genius received hints, rather than mate- 
rials from Egypt and Phoenicia ; and these were 
soon so filtered as to be free from any foreign tai nt 
Their literature, like their language, was primitive 
and homogeneous, and like the giant trees of the 
forest which have never been transplanted, and 
whose tap root has not been destroyed, it grew great 
in its native seat, and imbibed the full nourishment 
of the soil. 

THE ROMANS. 

VII. On the contrary, when learning was trans- 
ferred from Greece to Rome, it never took deep 
root, and made few spontaneous shoots, but still re- 
tained the delicacy of an exotic, and only grew with 
continued culture and carefulness ; — the literature 
of Rome was not national, and consequently not 
popular — it was at best a free imitation, often 
a mere translation, of thoughts which had received 
their birth in another country, from other events, 
and under other laws. After the Grecians had 
ceased to be inventors, the human mind for a long 
series of ages, seemed to have lost the power of 
originality : — Three great races of men placed all 
their learning in studying the Grecian models, with 
no other variety than what proceeded from their 
greater or lesser inability to enter fully into the 
thoughts, or copy the style of their masters. While 
the Romans, the Saracens, and the Goths, were at- 
tempting to tread in the footsteps of Grecian ge- 
nius, and the nations of the east had already reached 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 35 

the greatest height which the genius of their civili- 
zation permitted them to ascend, it may safely be 
asserted that the whole human race did not make 
one step in advance for more than a thousand years, 
and thereby gave a full confutation to the opinion 
of a necessary and continual progress in human so- 
ciety. 

The Romans, deriving their stock from a com- 
mon origin with the Grecians — speaking a cognate 
language — having a climate not greatly inferior, 
and laws rather improved — possessing the same 
intellectual horizon — credulous of the same fables 
— and worshipping the same deities, had scarcely 
the trouble of translating from the Greek language 
into their own, so naturally did the thoughts pass 
from one into the other ; but still there is the differ- 
ence between originality and imitation, and the loss 
which accompanies all transference of thought in 
its expansiveness as well as in its freshness. The 
Greeks, with only nature to borrow from, were in- 
exhaustible in their copiousness ; — the Romans, with 
nature, and Grecian literature to boot, to pillage 
from, shrink into much narrower limits, and the 
spoil of many volumes scarce suffices to compose 
one. The airy and speculative disquisitions of 
Greece disappear in the plainer and practical phi- 
losophy which was naturalized at Rome, and the 
more ethereal inquiries concerning the essences 
and first causes of things which had been the exer- 
cise of Athenian subtilty, yielded the first place, 



36 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

among the Romans, to the maxims which directed 
states, or regulated the conduct of private life. 

The Romans were borrowers in all things — they 
studied but one art, the art of conquering the world ; 
and even the weapons by which they extended 
their conquests were borrowed from the vanquished. 
The Roman state was like the Roman soldier — to 
him the day of battle was the time of relaxation, 
and war a season of pastime, compared with the 
severer toils of peace. The state when at war had 
only to contend with foreigners, and men whom it 
was habituated to overcome ; but when it ceased to 
be invaded from without it was attacked from 
within, and when conquest had been achieved, a new 
struggle commenced, not with strangers, but with 
Romans. The only change of which their condi- 
tion admitted was, that peace brought with it inter- 
minable struggles, and war, certain and speedy 
victory. Men in this hostile temper of mind, and 
in this fervid state of action, had no leisure to culti- 
vate any arts but those of victory, and even in these 
arts, so immediate was the pressure of their exigen- 
cies, that they were at once the vanquishers and 
adopters of the superior skill of their enemies. 

Like the rudest nations, they had a national poetry, 
and of a peculiar and impressive cast, but of which 
few fragments remain. Yet if we may judge from 
some verses of Ennius, it was massive, like the 
buildings of the ancient Etruscans, and of a rigid 
and iron mould, like the Roman character itself,— 
but this was of too scanty and slow a growth to sa- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 37 

tisfy those patricians, who, with a sudden influx of 
wealth, had acquired a taste for the knowledge of 
Greece. An imitation of Grecian literature soon 
supplanted the more racy but tardier produce of the 
Roman soil. The patronage of a few distinguished 
members of the aristocracy, who like Scipio and 
Laelius were studious of foreign refinement, and the 
servile and foreign origin of the earliest authors they 
patronised, as Terence and Plautus, sufficiently in- 
dicate that the manufacture of Grecian into Latin 
literature was neither the work of genius of home 
growth, nor undertaken by the incitement of na- 
tional encouragement. Not even when the Gre- 
cian writings were naturalized at Rome, and 
a taste was diffused for them throughout the peo- 
ple, did it occur to the Roman writers that nature 
lay as open to them as to their predecessors, and 
that originality had any other meaning than to signi- 
fy what had never before been translated. Their 
poets talk of approaching new fountains, by paths 
untrodden by any previous footsteps ; but they were 
new, only as being untasted, and unvi sited by the 
Romans who, far from seeking for fresh springs, 
upon untrodden summits, were contented to slake 
their thirst at the plentiful streams brought home to 
them by Grecian aqueducts. The writings of the 
Greeks were exalted to be a perpetual standard — 
every departure from them was involuntary, and 
the effect of weakness — they seemed like the ideas 
and archetypes of Plato, which contain each in its 
kind, the fulness and perfection of existence, and 



38 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

every variety from which had its source in defect 
and in its being less stamped with the original 
mould of excellence. 

Yet the literature of the Latins had its peculiar 
merits; their writers, in their imitation, had the 
benefit of choice and selection ; the various beau- 
ties of the Grecian writers were equally transfera- 
ble, and like the bee, to which Horace compares 
himself, they could gather honey from a hundred 
flowers. It is this selection and corrective taste 
which gives their charm to the Roman writers, in 
whom, if there is less to enkindle genius, there is 
at the same time less to offend fastidiousness ; and as 
in poetry they forsook the hardier attractions of ori- 
ginality, for beauties which admitted of a near view 
and a nicer examination ; so in the armory of the 
Grecian philosophy, they deserted those weapons 
which were chiefly for ostentation, and fitted them- 
selves with armour that was serviceable in the 
actual warfare of life. 

THE SARACENS. 

VIII. The Saracens and the Goths, who seized 
upon the fragments of Roman and Grecian great- 
ness, partook of a very unequal share of the plunder, 
and with very unequal fortunes. The Saracens be- 
came quickly imbued with Grecian civilization, and 
as quickly lost it ; while the Gothic race, who, for 
a long time, seemed as barbarous after they entered 
the empire as before, recovered the lost seeds of 
civilization, and cherished them into an abundant 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 39 

harvest. The causes, however, of this difference 
may be traced ; the civilization of the eastern half 
of the empire was immediately Grecian ; it was 
peopled with Greeks who had brought their litera- 
ture along with them, which existed there as gen- 
uine as at home, though more diffused ; but the 
civilization of the west had been obtained more 
slowly, imperfectly, and at second hand from Rome 
which herself had derived from Greece, through 
the medium of another language. Hence the soil 
of the east was much more impregnated with sci- 
ence than the west ; and when the rapid and fierce 
invasion of the Saracens had passed over it, there 
still remained much of the former treasures of 
knowledge that had not been swept away ; but in 
the west, one invasion only opened the way to an- 
other, and the relics that survived the first storm 
were scattered more widely by a second, and utter- 
ly dissipated by a third. 

The civilization of the Saracens has been equal- 
ly remarkable for its brilliancy and its briefness — 
both proceeding, in a great measure, from the bril- 
liancy and the briefness of their conquests. A bat- 
tle made them masters of kingdoms, and they occu- 
pied palaces and thrones from which their prede- 
cessors had scarcely departed. When the first 
heat of victory and fanaticism was over, the Ca- 
liphs sought for the wise men as for the hidden 
treasures of the countries they had despoiled and 
mastered ; and the wisdom of the Greeks, the se- 



40 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

crets of the Magi, and the inventions of the nations 
beyond the Indus, were accumulated along with 
the peculiar riches of the east and the west, around 
the throne of the Caliph. 

The Saracens had stretched over the nations, 
like a thunder-cloud, and like an electrical arch 
they had lightened at once at both extremities ; 
thus forming a conductor between the east and the 
west, they brought into contact and combination 
the discoveries of races who lived on opposite 
sides of the earth. The formation of gunpowder, 
paper, printing, and other arts, which had long re- 
mained inert in the east, became animated with Eu- 
ropean intelligence : and society has changed its 
face less from any new invention, than from two 
elements entering into a new combination, — the 
empirical discoveries of the east, and the ingenuity 
of Europe, fertile in improvement and application. 
But, as we have said, the brevity of their career was 
equal to its brilliancy. The Saracens were but 
scholars, and never held the key in their own hand, 
of the information they had obtained, that is, the 
Greek Language ; the learning of the Greeks was 
crushed beneath the yoke of their pupils. When 
the Greeks ceased to communicate, the Saracens 
ceased to advance : the arabic translations of Greek 
authors became to them the boundary of the mind — 
truths which it was impossible to transcend, limits 
impassable to the most exalted intelligence. Even 
this portion of Arabian science has existed chiefly 
without the confines of Arabia ; and when its for- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 4l 

«ign empire fell to the ground, these translated 
records perished with it, or existed only in those 
fragments which had been a second time translated 
into the barbarous Latin of the scholastics. (G.) 

GOTHIC RACE. 

IX. The eminence which the Gothic nations have 
subsequently attained may be traced to their weak- 
ness — to the very causes that might be supposed to 
produce an opposite result — to the fewness of their 
numbers, which incorporated them with the van- 
quished nations, and to the disorganization, the 
result of the feudal system, which, breaking every 
bond of union, threw each one back upon his own 
resources, and developed an energy of individual 
character unexampled before or since. 

The civilization of the Greeks took its form from 
cities, — that of the Gothic race, from the solitary 
life of strong holds surrounded by forests. Amidst 
the darkness of the darkest ages, when the whole 
frame of Society had fallen to pieces, there arose, 
though unseen, the commencement of a new mind, 
and a new moral world, as different from the pre- 
ceding, as if a second deluge had swept over the 
earth, and prepared the way for the renewal of the 
species. The new European nations gave at first 
no great promise of originality ; they were imita- 
tors, and imitators of the worst models, — the bar- 
barous writers who lived during the decline and 
fall of the Roman Empire. From these they gra- 
dually re-ascended, as they emerged from barbarism. 
4 



42 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

till, after a century or two, they acquired a taste 
for, and a familiarity with, the writers of the Au- 
gustan age. 

The first fruitful source of thought they disco- 
vered, arose from combining the poetry of ancient 
Rome with that of the Provencal bards. Many 
have been surprised at the almost miracle of Dante 
creating at once a new language, and a new cast of 
poetry ; but the riches of one dialect can easily be 
transfused into another. The treasures of the Latin 
language were opened to enrich the Italian, as those 
of the Greek had formerly been to the Latins ; 
while a new point of view, and a new shade of 
colouring for all objects having been obtained in the 
peculiar turn of mind that had arisen in the dark 
ages, the images of the Roman poets had again the 
appearance of novelty, when seen through the 
stained medium which partially admitted the light 
of other days. The new position of the moderns 
gave a newness to their views, and though not on 
the same eminence with the ancients, they also 
began to ascend a height, whence they could be- 
hold the same objects that had before occupied the 
attention of their predecessors, placed indeed at a 
greater distance, and more indistinctly manifested. 
They had, however, some advantages, in being 
freed from many of the bright illusions which had 
led astray the Grecians, and in having no magical 
language to throw a veil over the wanderings of 
their imaginations, or to disguise the tenuity of their 
thoughts. Less occupied with vivid fancies, they 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 43 

studied more closely the real world ; and that world, 
while they studied it, expanded itself to their view, 
and opened those recesses which had been conceal- 
ed from the beginning of time. 

MODERN EUROPE. 

X. The literature which was formed during the 
fourteenth century, was made up of two constituent 
parts, derived from the peculiarity of Gothic genius 
on the one hand, and from the revival of classical 
learning on the other ; and all would have been 
well, had each been kept to its due proportions ; 
but, as it is much more easy to borrow than to in- 
vent, the originality of genius was nearly stifled by 
the facility of procuring supplies from the ancient 
writers ; and the learned men of Europe in the 
fifteenth century were likely to become mere imi- 
tators — the most successful, but the most servile of 
the models of Greece and Rome. Towards the 
middle of the fifteenth century, however, a new 
influence rose, which, united with other changes 
that immediately followed it, has given the modern 
nations a fresh impulse, has disclosed to them more 
than a new world, and is carrying them to a dis- 
tance far beyond the bounds of ancient authority, 
where the voices from antiquity come feeble upon 
the ear, and the greatness of Greece and Rome is 
lessened to the view. This great and newly-risen 
power, which as yet has not put forth half its strength, 
is the art of printing. It has reformed religion, and 
ne-sr-modelled philosophy — has infused a new spirit 



44 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

into laws, and overrules governments with a para- 
mount authority — makes the communication of mind 
easy and instantaneous beyond example — confers a 
perpetuity unknown before upon institutions and 
discoveries, and gives those wings to science which 
it has taken from time. 

From the end of the fifteenth century we may 
date the fourth period of Advancement in Society, 
which is yet far from being exhausted, and it may 
be hoped, will proceed with an accelerating velocity, 
since the cauaes which gave it birth still exist, and 
will soon be brought to act on human affairs with 
an increase of energy. 

The first of these causes in time, and in import- 
ance, in the time of its discovery, and in the im- 
portance of its ultimate effects, was, as we have 
said, the art of printing ; but the cauac most imme- 
diately operative was the discovery of America, 
which, in the influence it is destined to exert on the 
human race, is second and only second, to the art 
of printing. The very knowledge of the existence 
of America loosened the fetters of the authority, 
and diminished the importance of the ancients : it 
even seemed to dwarf their greatness, by showing 
to what a corner they were confined, and how ig- 
norant they were of the world which they inhabited. 
The mind became animated with hopes that all had 
not been exhausted by antiquity, and that, as nature 
had reserved a new world to reward the attempts 
of the moderns, so, in like manner, new revelations 
of the moral world might await the intellectual dis-< 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 45 

coverer, who should be daring enough to force his 
way to them. 

While the earth was enlarged by the addition of 
a new continent, the universe was amplified, and its 
bounds were made to recede, by the invention of 
the telescope ; and the philosophy of the ancients, 
with their theories about their narrow system of ex- 
istence, seemed at once puerile, and immature when 
compared with that path into immensity which 
Galileo had opened, and that host of starry worlds 
which were described by the Columbus of the 
heavens. 

Printing, and the use of fire arms, the discovery 
of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, 
which accompanied that of America, and the subse- 
quent circumnavigation of the globe, the invention 
of the telescope, united with that of the micro- 
scope, — all these acquisitions and discoveries, 
crowded together into the space of a few fleeting 
generations, hurried mankind, before they were 
aware of it, into a new career, by an impetus which 
we still feel, and which is still carrying the world 
forward without our being able to indicate the point 
in futurity where its motion will cease. A variety 
of hindrances have retarded these causes from pro- 
ducing that full and transforming change which they 
are destined in the end to effect. It is at particular 
periods that their influence has been most felt, and 
that a force has been exerted which allows us to 
calculate how great the measure of their concentra- 
ted power will be, when, having wasted the ob- 

4* 



46 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

stacles which oppose its progresses the shore is 
gradually worn away by the tide, it can burst 
through all restraints, and pour itself abroad with- 
out a struggle or a limit. The reformation was a 
period of that kind, though the mind was scarcely 
then conscious of its newly discovered resources ; 
yet the change which took place in society, with- 
out any force but that of opinion, showed that new 
energies had sprung up, and that the moral world 
was about to be subjected to new laws. Never 
had the human faculties been so deeply and uni- 
versally stirred as by the disputes between Luther 
and the Church of Rome. Unlike other questions, 
confined to a single country, and to a few specula- 
tive men, it shook Europe from one extremity to the 
other, and every individual was interested in an is- 
sue which concerned his own conduct and happi- 
ness. Wide was the passage from the stupor and 
servile acquiescence of the dark ages to the un- 
limited freedom of inquiry, and the fearless asser- 
tion of the right of private judgment, by which 
were subjected to understandings of every degree 
of strength and weakness, disputations more im- 
portant and sublime than had of old exercised the 
philosophers of Athens, and baffled the penetration 
of the acutest geniuses of antiquity. After this the 
sleep of the human mind was thoroughly broken. — 
Long established authority held a very precarious 
sway if it had neither force nor reason to uphold it ; 
and, if the kings of Europe had not lent their 
swords in defence of error, the doctrines of the re- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 47 

formers would have made their way, and would 
have gained the ascendency, in countries the most 
deeply degraded by the yoke of the church of 
Rome. Partial, however, as the reformation was, 
both in its spirit and in its extent, it has sufficiently 
evidenced the strength of opinion, when, combined 
with intimate persuasion, urged by the voice of 
conscience, and diffused by the new facilities which 
the press afforded ; and error and traditional au- 
thority have avowed themselves unequal to the 
contest, by taking refuge under the protection of 
brutal force. 

That spirit which had produced the reformation, 
and revival of religion, was thenceforward easily, 
and naturally extended to other inquiries, and speed- 
ily produced a reform in philosophy. The strug- 
gle in throwing off the iron bands of superstition 
gave new vigour to the human faculties, and minds 
of the old giant breed again appeared among men. 
The confidence of such minds was equal to their 
strength; every thing that passed through their 
hands assumed a new form ; and out of the ruins 
of ancient magnificence, they shaped to themselves 
a new model of creation, more enduring as more 
deeply grounded in nature. 

The greatest of these great minds at length ob- 
tained the clue of nature's labyrinth, and was ena- 
bled to dig deep enough to lay a solid foundation 
for science. The ancient philosophers, before they 
could erect a system of their own, had to demolish 
the theories of their predecessors, as the kings of 



48 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

the east, when they build their shifting capitals, often 
construct them out of the materials of some for- 
mer metropolis. But the discoveries of the in- 
ductive philosophers unite together with the conti- 
nuity which belongs to real existence ; and sup- 
port and nourish each other as parts of one harmo- 
nious whole. Being rooted in nature, inductive 
philosophy has the principle of growth in it, and 
has no other barrier to its increase than the limits of 
creation and of the faculties of the mind. Its in- 
struments and its materials are always ready and at 
hand, in phenomena and in observation; and it 
rests upon two unfailing supporters, truth and time. 
The efforts of former searchers after truth were 
blows at random, and truth and error were alike 
the result of their inquiries ; but the method of Ba- 
con not only leads to conclusions where truth alone 
is the produce, and where error is excluded, but 
contains within it a self-perpetuating power, by 
which attention and combination supply the want of 
a concurrence of favourable circumstances, and the 
transient divinations of genius. Yet one defect it 
has ; and that partly foreseen and guarded against 
by Bacon; not founded on any imperfection of 
method, but on the sluggishness natural to man. — 
Whatever facilitates, weakens ; and the mind de- 
rives its strength from labour, and its activity from 
variety. The multiplicity and minuteness of ope- 
rations prescribed by induction, occasioned the di- 
vision of intellectual labour, which increased the 
acquisitions, but diminished the powers and the en- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 49 

thusiasm of mankind. Excluded from the univer- 
sality of nature, the philosophers of modern days 
have been confined by this humbler though certain 
path to narrower and still narrower portions of that 
ample field which the daring speculations of the 
ancient philosophers permitted them to traverse. 

In proportion as the method of philosophy has 
been improved, the powers of philosophers have 
decreased. Imagination has given place to minute 
and narrow observation. Intellect, discursive as 
the universe, has been superseded by that degree 
of mind, which is adequate to class a few facts : and 
the intense attention which was exacted by the 
mysteries of transcendental philosophy, is exchang- 
ed for that slight view, in which the eye of the body 
is more exercised than that of the mind. The dis- 
coveries, however, of one inductive philosopher co- 
incide with those of another : while the theories of 
the ancient speculators were mutually destructive. 
And in this way even the small contributions of lit- 
tle minds become important from accumulation ; 
while great events still produce great geniuses ; 
and, upborne by the revolutions of Europe, a num- 
ber of men have always reached a height far above 
their contemporaries. 

The religious reformation, and the attempts at 
civil reformation — the commonwealth and the re- 
volution of England — the Fronde, and the later 
preparations for revolution in France — have each 
of them given birth to minds of a stronger texture 
and larger grasp than could be expected in seasons 



50 ADVENCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

of political calm. Shakspeare, along with Bacon, 
Milton, and Newton, mark respectively, not only 
the greatest height which the intellect is capable of 
ascending, but indicate those periods of civil and re- 
ligious conflict, when the energy of a nation is called 
forth, and the strength which was at first exercised 
in political convulsions, passes at length from action 
to contemplation. It is at such epochs, and from such 
men mutually enkindling each other's genius, that 
the most signal advancements have been derived, to 
whom the progress of society, retarded at other 
times almost to a full stop, owes its rapid accele- 
rations. These are the master spirits we need at 
the present moment, to lend their aid to science 
and literature ; to enrich what is sterile, and rein- 
vigorate what is effete : to engraft the scattered 
branches upon one living stock ; to make the same 
vital sap circulate through them all ; and to clothe 
their naked outline with the blossoms of a new 
spring ; and, like the fabled soul of the world, to 
warm and actuate every member of the inert and 
disjointed mass with the presence of a prolific and 
informing intelligence. 

SUMMARY. 

XL It thus appears, to sum up what has been 
already noticed, within what narrow spaces and 
brief limits the progresses of society are confined. 
Some remembrances of antediluvian knowledge ; 
some partial elements of sciences that had pe- 
rished: obscure recollections of the history of 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 51 

a former world, gradually assuming a mytholo- 
gical cast, and the truncated basis of a common 
language which was beginning to shoot out again 
into various dialects, about to become the mother 
languages of the many-tongued earth, formed the 
hereditary stock of those who had escaped the 
deluge, and had their first seats between the Ti- 
gris and Euphrates. 

A second advancement, and a second state of so- 
ciety, arose from the empires founded on the banks 
of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the rivers of the 
farthest east — where the elements of lost science 
were again wrought up into systems of knowledge, 
but of knowledge which even in its infancy was 
corrupted by superstition ; still, however, present- 
ing an immense mass of opinions, mixed with 
perverted analogies, and expressed in symbols or 
in languages intelligible only to one initiated class. 
This civilization, diffused over the finest portion of 
the earth, and spreading from the Mediterranean to 
the Pacific Ocean, still exists, with sciences real or 
pretended in India and China, down to the present 
day : yet it is difficult to estimate the progress made 
where advancement is so mingled with wanderings, 
and truth with error; and where civilization con- 
tinues to entail so much misery upon mankind. 

The third and most rapid and illustrious civiliza- 
tion is that of Greece, confined to a narrow space 
while progressive, though, after it had ceased to 
rise, extended in breadth over a wide and populous 
region — the most marvellous in its secret and sud- 



52 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

den origin, and reaching the height of humanity in 
its various attainments ; and, as if exhausting the 
mind by superhuman efforts, succeeded by a long 
period of unproductiveness and imitation. 

After the Roman, Arabic, and Gothic imitators 
of the Greeks, we arrive at the fourth period of ad- 
vancement, the successful and fruitful period which 
has elapsed from the revival of letters to the pre- 
sent time ; which unites, in some measure, the tri- 
umphant results of Grecian genius to the more ex- 
tensive civilization of the early monarchies ; yet, 
even during this course of more steady and uniform 
amelioration, we perceive narrower limits and long- 
er intervals than might at first have been anticipa- 
ted ; and though all Europe has been advancing, it 
is advancing by the labours of a few. First Italy, 
then France and England, and latterly Germany, 
have borne the heat and burden of the day, and 
even in these countries the light of knowledge has 
only shone upon a few eminences, while the primi- 
tive darkness, scarcely disturbed, has rested on the 
body of the people. When we regard more nar- 
rowly, we see that this advancement is chiefly 
owing to some powerful political struggle which 
calls out from obscurity men who would otherwise 
have slumbered away their lives, or to some emi- 
nent genius who enkindles around him a cluster of 
similar minds, where each reflects and multiplies the 
brightness of which all are partakers. 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 53 

DEFECT OF TERMS. 

XII. The interior movements of society have 
been so little attended to, that the vocabulary is 
somewhat scanty for discriminating the shades of 
its changes ; savage, barbarian, agricultural, and 
civilized, are the only four terms w T e have to de- 
nominate the range and variety of social existence. 
The application of them is determined by the mode 
of procuring subsistence ; and the etymology of all 
of them is obvious, except that of barbarian, which 
has been greatly mistaken. Like several other 
terms whose roots are unknown, it was probably 
derived by the Greeks from the Phoenicians and 
Egyptians ; and the originals of the name are per- 
haps to be found in the Berber race ; those shep- 
herds who over-ran Egypt, and whose name and 
occupation became alike an abomination to the 
Egyptians. The same term is found in the Sans- 
crit, and appears there as a stranger and an exotic ; 
a circumstance which tends to throw some light 
upon the early communications of India. The 
savage condition had its prototypes in the early and 
sylvan inhabitants of Arcadia, who fed upon acorns, 
or followed the chase ; the barbarian — in those Li- 
byan shepherds, celebrated in Greece for the unri- 
valled fecundity of their flocks ; the agricultural — 
in the favoured race taught by Ceres to solicit by 
the plough the earth for food ; and the civilized — 
m those whom the Grecian legislators gathered 
into cities, and informed by manners and by laws. 

5 



54 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCTETY 

Even these denominations are of lax application ; 
the savage, though denoting the simplest state, is 
obliged to stand for a variety of conditions ; the 
solitary animal, who in the Indian islands, is hunted 
like the beasts of chace, and takes refuge in the 
branches of trees ; the miserable wretches that 
scarcely exist upon the Andaman islands, and the 
brutal families of New South Wales, are included 
under the same designation with the bravest and 
most eloquent tribes of the North American Indi- 
ans. While thus barely furnished with terms for 
the first steps of human progress, we are left alto- 
gether without the assistance of names to mark the 
ascending scale of civilized life. In default of 
these, we may make use of the periods of ad- 
vancement already pointed out to distinguish the 
modes and degrees of civilization. The civiliza- 
tion of the early monarchies had one character 
throughout — the Hindoo idolater is still ready to 
bend his knee at the ruined shrines of ancient 
Egypt ; and in the series of philosophic history,, 
the chasm occasioned by the loss of the Egyptian 
and Chaldean writings, is supplied by the works of 
the Chinese and Indians. The classic, the Sara- 
cenic, and the Gothic, mark out other forms of civi- 
lization ; and their history indicates the elements of 
which they were composed ; while modern civiliza- 
tion embraces the new series of years that have be- 
gun their course since the invention of printing, and 
the discovery of America, not altogether freed from 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 55 

the colouring of the times which preceded them, 
and not yet disclosed in the fulness of their influence. 

COMPLEX MOVEMENT OF SOCIETY. 

XIII. Not only are the terms for the different 
points of social improvement defective, but the play 
of the intricate frame work of society has been in- 
distinctly comprehended. Nor is it wonderful, 
considering the maze and multiplicity of its move- 
ments, that opinions respecting them should be 
as various as the aspects in which they are beheld ; 
it remains, therefore, to indicate from what partial 
points of view the conflicting opinions, concerning 
the retrograde, stationary, and progressive condition 
of society, have been derived ; and to give each 
its due place in the complex mechanism of human 
affairs. 

Borne forward by the progress of Europe, and 
feeling the rapidity of the movement, we are apt to 
transfer our own advancements to mankind in ge- 
neral, and to imagine that there is a necessary and 
continued amelioration in human affairs. But if. 
withdrawing our attention from the present scene, 
and the times we live in, we extended our view to 
the seats of ancient empire, or the records of an- 
cient wisdom, and reckoned up the monuments of 
greatness that has perished, and of genius that no 
more walks the earth, we might come to a contrary 
conclusion, and suspect that what we most admire 
were but the relics of a more widely extended 
state of prosperity ; that science is diminished in 



56 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

her sway ; and that the earth is despoiled of half 
J ts glories. So many cities exist but in ruins, so 
many regions look back to a far distant age, as the 
era of their greatness, that we may traverse four- 
fifths of the globe, and find that the nations are 
feeding, not upon hopes, but upon remembrances ; 
and that to them it is the past, and not the future, 
that is encircled with brightness. In this over es- 
timate of foregone time, there is an obvious, but 
ceaseless illusion, which is ever playing with a daz- 
zling light upon antiquity. The brief present is 
compared to the long past ; and all the advantages 
and acquisitions of all ages are weighed against the 
circumstances and survivals of the times we live 
in. And the temper in which we approach the 
question is partial ; for when we look to the present 
we are chiefly occupied about inconveniencies we 
wish to remove ; and when we regard the past, 
about advantages which we regret, and would wish 
to retain. There is, indeed, a slight retrograde 
movement in society, confined within a narrow 
space, and but the reflux of the advancing wave. 
It consists in this, that the vigour and heat of origi- 
nality is wasted by transmission, and that the repe- 
tition of copies circulates a feebler impression of 
the master-thoughts of those geniuses who have 
laid the foundations of knowledge. It is thus that 
the Indians and Chinese have somewhat receded, 
for upwards of a thousand years, from the vividness 
of those writings which have moulded their minds, 
and preoccupied their admiration. But in countries 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 57 

where the faculties are not enthralled, and where 
new teachers are ever communicating new disco- 
veries, this retrograde movement forms but an eddy 
in the onward stream of human improvement. 
Another retrograde movement is occasioned by the 
severity of nature, and the inhospitality of climate, 
where, oppressed by an unfavourable situation, as 
in the instance of the tribes driven upon the shores 
of the Icy Sea, mankind sink below their former 
level, by being obliged to exchange a more abun- 
dant mode of subsistence for one less productive ; 
but this retrogression is of rare occurrence, and 
hardly enters into a general reckoning of the for- 
tunes and changes of the species. The receding 
movement formerly noticed in India and China is 
of small moment, and fully compensated by the 
under current of descending knowledge, which is 
gradually pervading all ranks, and floating down to 
them the acquisitions of superior minds, and which 
more than makes up, if we compute the mass of 
information existing at any one time, for the defi- 
ciencies of those who have ceased to enlarge the 
attainments of science, and who hold what has 
already been acquired with a relaxed grasp. 

The view that next presents itself is that which 
represents society as stationary ; merely regaining 
in one direction what it loses in another ; and, if 
any single principle, necessarily and continually 
operative, were to be admitted, this is the one ap- 
plicable to the greatest number of instances. Na- 
ture having formed large tracts of countrv, in some 
5* 



58 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY' 



places fit only for hunting, and in others for pastur- 
age, has condemned succeeding generations to fol- 
low the same hereditary occupations, by the barrier 
of insurmountable ^obstacles ; and where nature 
has been more liberal, custom has stepped in, and 
by the chains of caste, as strong as those of necessity, 
has ri vetted individuals to the same profession with 
their ancestors, and to the same narrow circle of 
thought. In other cases, where, with an open ex- 
panse before them, mankind might hope for an 
almost limitless course, so many adverse storms 
thwart their farther progress, that it is only by a 
perpetual struggle that they can prevent themselves 
being driven back to the point from which they set 
out. Even a certain number of truths, when in 
possession of the mind, often make good their set- 
tlement against any new occupants ; and satisfied 
with what they have already attained, the supposed 
wealth of many constitutes their real poverty. And 
men, in all circumstances, so strongly gravitate to 
the earth, and ascent is to them so adverse, that 
those who advance forward are rare and brilliant 
exceptions to the mighty sediment that they leave 
behind them. 

This stationary tendency, and this inertness in so- 
ciety, if numerically considered, is the most preva- 
lent : yet the tendency to advancement is the most 
diffusive ; since that which is gained by one is com- 
municable to all. 

While thus society has been stationary in the 
mass, and retrograde in some instances ; an ad- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 59 

vancement, though neither universal nor continual, 
has been carrying one portion of mankind after 
another along that course of improvement to which 
all men seem destined by their faculties, and by 
their hopes, and which so few are allowed to enter 
and to persevere in. This high trust of amassing 
intellectual wealth for the species, has been permit- 
ted but to a few nations, and to no nation for more 
than a few ages. When the light of knowledge is 
dawning upon new countries, it is setting upon its 
ancient seats. 

"Illic sero rubcns accendit lumina Vesper." 

The first and second periods of advancement 
which joined into each other, were the longest in 
time, as well as the most extensive in the variety of 
regions they spread over. Egypt and Chaldea had 
been accumulating knowledge for above fifteen 
hundred years, and the same movements in ad- 
vance were prolonged and repeated in India and 
China, which, as they appear to have been later, so 
they continued to advance longer, and were pro- 
gressive till the Christian era. But as rivers in 
their course are often choked up by natural barriers, 
and become lakes before they can continue their 
progress, so this wide-spread civilization was dif- 
fused and stagnant over the east, till it found a new 
issue in Greece. Along the whole course of the 
mind, it is remarkable that there are moral barriers 
which rise at intervals, and in succession, impeding 
its movement, and almost threatening to arrest it 



60 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

for ever. The first of these boundaries is that 
which was encountered by the early monarchies, 
and which stopped them all after they had reached 
nearly the same point. It consisted in the misap- 
plication of science ; and. as trees in some soils- 
grow but to a certain length, and are afterwards co- 
vered over with a decaying fungus, so knowledge in 
these countries shot up to a certain fixed point, and 
was soon encrusted and consumed by those false 
sciences and superstitious studies which fastened 
around its trunk, and sucked out its nourishing sap. 
The second obstacle which limited the progress of 
the Greeks, consisted in their ignorance of the pow- 
er of the instrument to be employed for the attain- 
ment of truth — that is. their ignorance of the facul- 
ties of their own mind, and of the mode of apply- 
ing them to the study of nature in a way which 
would lead them to true science. 

The Romans, the Saracens, and the Goths, were 
prevented from advancing by a very obvious cause : 
for as water can rise no higher than its level, so imi- 
tation can never surpass its model, and in most in- 
stances must fall considerably below it. Whatever 
hindrances exist at the present day are not among 
the number of those greater obstacles, and are all in 
the way of being overcome by the natural course of 
events, but might be still more speedily removed 
by the assistance of art. Futurity alone can de- 
cide whether other impediments remain behind, 
that will terminate the movement which is now ear- 
ning on society, or whether science will advance 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 61 

till it reach its last and ultimate obstacle in its limits 
of the human mind. 

ADVANCEMENT PROVIDENTIAL. 

XIV. In all the movements of society there is an 
ever-resumed and renovated progress, but not a ne- 
cessary and uninterrupted progress. There is a 
real advancement, but arising out of the issues of 
events, and not out of the necessity and nature of 
things. As individuals perish to give room to those 
to whom they have given life, so one nation kindles 
a light for another from its own dying lamp, and is 
itself soon left in darkness ; and from viewing what 
is past, we might as well ascribe a natural immor- 
tality to man, as an inherent perpetuity to his at- 
tainments in knowledge. 

The progress of science has depended on a very 
slender thread of transmission hitherto, and has 
been determined by a few incidental circumstances, 
incidental, if compared with the sum of human af- 
fairs, and remarkable chiefly from their conse- 
quences. Make one or two slight modifications in 
geography, or reverse one or two events in history, 
and the hopes of the world would have received a 
blight, without the> prospect of a second spring. — 
Expunge Greece, and the map of the world would 
remain nearly the same ; but how different would 
be the condition of the moral world ! for the model 
of epic poetry we should only have had the Rama- 
youna of Yalmeeki, and for the exemplar of moral 
philosophy the sayings of Confucius. In history, 



O'Z ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

alter the event of the battles of Salamis and of 
Tours, and we should hold as the highest examples 
of human greatness the lives of the Chosroes and 
the Caliphs. 

The Deity has made human life brittle, that His 
continual providence might be manifest in the pre- 
servation of it ; and He seems to have withheld 
from man the impetus that would have carried him 
forward at all times, and in all places, to the perfec- 
tion of his intellect, that His providence in human 
affairs might be visible, in supplying from minute, 
and apparently fortuitous events, those assistances 
to humanity which the world at large did not fur- 
nish. If we look upon the changes of society as 
a progress to one great end, the history of the larger 
part of mankind becomes a mere episode, and the 
interest of the drama of human life is confined to 
a narrow space and scanty population, who carry 
along with them the destiny of the species, while 
the mass of nations remain uninterested and un- 
concerned in those acquisitions for humanity, of 
which in the end they will only be the passive re- 
cipients. Egypt, Greece, Italy, and again Italy, 
France, England, and Germany, form the narrow 
theatre on which the fates of man have been trans- 
acted, as far as it respects his civil existence and 
scientific attainments. 

By their means under divine guidance, a succes- 
sion of knowledge has been preserved, and the 
stream of science, though, like what was fabled of 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. G3 

AJpheus, it has sunk under ground, has burst again 
to light, and flowed in an ever-widening channel. 

There is this peculiarity in the process, remarka- 
ble but not singular; for a similar course is ob- 
served elsewhere under the divine government, 
both in the natural and the moral world ; that bene- 
fits, which are intended ultimately to be as diffusive 
as mankind, are shut up within some narrow con- 
fines, or reserved for the keeping of a privileged 
race, who maintain the sacred deposit until the ap- 
pointed season. 

It has long been objected to Christianity, and es- 
pecially to the Mosaic dispensation, that it was con- 
fined to a barren country and an insignificant tribe ; 
and the argument has been applied to it, which was 
urged by Cato, against the Inspiration of the Oracle 
of Ammon, that it was absurd to suppose that the 
Deity retired from the immensity of nature, and 
withdrew into a desert, that he might utter his voice 
to a few, and bury truth in the sands. 

" Ut caneret Faucis mcrsitque hoc pulvere Veram." 

But the same objection might be applied to the 
ordering of the physical and the moral world: 
since one plan, emanating from the same intelli- 
gence, is observable throughout all. Religion and 
science, like two streams destined to unite in the 
same channel, have flowed on side by side, and have 
passed through the same countries, involved in the 
same maze of events, and suffering or triumphant 
under the same variety of political changes. The 



64 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

affairs of the Israelites were closely connected 
with those of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and af- 
terwards were ultimately bound to those of Greece 
and Rome. The world of the Jewish writers was 
the world of the Roman Empire ; and the history 
of Christianity has been carried on by those Go- 
thic tribes who have continued the improvement of 
science, and with whose ever-brightening fortunes 
both knowledge and religion are decreed to extend 
their sway, and to perpetuate their advancement. 
But, not to insist on a minor argument for the truth 
of revelation, which is already almost overbur- 
dened with the copiousness and infinite variety of 
its proofs, and where the difficulty and the merit of 
its advocates has long consisted in selection, it is 
pleasing and important to remark the kindred ori- 
gin and history, and at length the indissoluble union 
of science and religion ; and to anticipate the com- 
bined result of their efforts in the service of man, 
and the blessings they are likely to draw down upon 
his head. 

ANCIENT AND MODERN ACTION OF SOCIETY. 

XV, As the mind must be first acted upon by ex- 
ternal objects, before it is conscious of its own ex- 
istence, or can voluntarily exert its powers, so the 
joint result of many minds which may be called the 
mind of society, must first be acted upon by events, 
and must be roused to action by external incite- 
ment, before it amasses vigour to react upon itself, 
and to control and direct its own movements. — 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 65 

Hence the first changes which the mind of society 
receives, proceed from the changes which modify 
its external form, and are regulated by these in their 
measure, and determined in their duration. One 
of the most influential circumstances in society is 
the mode of obtaining subsistence, which in its early 
stages fixes its character and denomination, and 
even in its later progress exerts a wide sway over 
all its bearings ; thus the first and most accelerating 
impulses are those which mankind receive from a 
change in their subsistence ; when betaking them- 
selves to a more abundant method of supply, plenty 
is diffused among them. When leaving the chace 
for pasturage, or rearing corn instead of depending 
solely upon cattle, the population, which before felt 
the pressure of want, possess food in abundance, 
and are borne forwards upon a sudden tide of pros- 
perity ; the mind partaking of the general move- 
ment, and warmed by the impetus of advancing, is 
roused from its torpor, and enlarges also its acqui- 
sitions. But it is after governments are moulded 
into a fixed shape, and exert a defined action, and 
after the series of events have commenced which 
constitute the history of the nation, that what is tru- 
ly the national mind is formed, and that the genius 
of the nation arises to proportional heights at suc- 
cessive intervals, as if responding to the national 
achievements. The names of Homer and of Troy 
are for ever conjoined, not merely because Homer 
celebrated its destruction, but because the same im- 
pulse which poured all Greece upon the shores of 
6 



DO ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

Asia, was perpetuated down to him, and did not 
terminate till it had enkindled his genius. The 
lustre of the Athenian theatre shone out after their 
struggle with the Persians ; and the age of Pericles 
was the age when Athens single-handed withstood 
the banded power of Greece. The poem of En- 
nius followed the successes of the Romans in their 
Carthaginian wars, as the songs of triumph attend- 
ed the chariot of the Conqueror ; and the Augustan 
age of poetry closed the long contests which in- 
volved the extremities of the Roman world, as the 
noise of battle on the field of conflict was termina- 
ted and drowned by the paeans of victory. 

But as the mind comes at last to acquire a power 
of modifying the impressions which it receives 
from without, and of varying them at its will in 
combination and division ; so society attains gradu- 
ally to a self-moving and self-regulating power, 
which relieves it from the pressure of immediate 
circumstances, and enlarges it into a greater free- 
dom from external events. The objects it pursues, 
and the impulses it receives, are of a more refined 
and less material character ; and if we bring into 
comparison the heroic times of Greece and the Eu- 
ropean ages of chivalry, and set the Crusades against 
the Trojan wars, we shall see that mankind had ac- 
quired the capacity of being incited by a far more 
subtle agency, and by objects which were without 
the sphere of the senses, and by passions which 
pressed on to eternity. The ancients were impelled 
by events, the moderns by thoughts ; the power of 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 67 

the first lay in enthusiasm, of the latter in medita- 
tion ; and the ardour of the latter, though slower of 
kindling, ministers fuel to itself, and prolongs itself 
after the immediate causes which gave it birth have 
passed away. The struggle at the Reformation for 
religious liberty, compared with the struggles of 
the Greeks for freedom, proved that new and high- 
er interests had occupied the soul of man ; and the 
contest for civil liberty at the French Revolution, 
showed that freedom had passed from a passion in- 
to a conviction, and instead of a competition for 
actual privileges, was changed into a war for ab- 
stract rights. 

The last political change was in all things con- 
trasted with those that preceded it. In other re- 
volutions the events were produced by blind causes, 
which gave such an impulse in their consequences 
to mind. Here mind prepared the events, which, 
though plastic to intelligence, were not produc- 
tive of it, and the only revolution which mind 
alone operated, was the only one unfavourable to 
the development of mind. Other events had given 
an impulse by the remembrances of glorious actions : 
the French Revolution, while yet in preparation, af- 
forded glorious hopes, but bequeathed only shame- 
ful recollections ; it proved the destruction of those 
who had set it in motion ; and, disastrous as it was, 
it has left nothing to animate men in the sharp and 
bitter transition from the old state of society to one 
which is entirely new. 



68 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

REMOVAL OF IMPEDIMENTS. 

XVI. With the self-perpetuating power which is 
springing up in society, a facility is afforded for 
preserving it from decay, for regulating its move- 
ments, and what is more, for turning aside the ob- 
stacles which impede its advancement. Several 
of these are smaller hindrances, which are gradual- 
ly wasted away, and many of them are destruc- 
tive of each other. The scattered multitude of 
facts which are now without a cohesive principle, 
will unite like the atoms of Epicurus, into an har- 
monious system, and dry and lifeless details will 
have a glow of colouring and warmth spread over 
them. Ingenious difficulties in science will give 
way to more popular solutions, and the divisions of 
knowledge, re-united to the heart of nature, will be 
restored to the domain of eloquence and poetry, 
and to the fervour of that ancient philosophy, which, 
if it was barren of information, was strong in pas- 
sion, and discursive in intellect. The casual evils 
that result from beneficial inventions, will either 
perish of themselves, or be swept off by these in- 
ventions, when perfected. Printing has been ac- 
cused of degrading literature, by making- a library 
a vulgar acquisition, and an acquaintance with 
books a cheap and easy distinction : it has multi- 
plied a number of indifferent works, and has, by 
their perpetual variety, created a keener appetite 
for novelty than excellence, and divides and dis- 
tracts the admiration among a number of imperfect 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 69 

essays, which was better bestowed upon a few 
models, when books were rare, and copies of them 
were less numerous. This evil also is correcting 
itself, and even in publications of the most trifling 
kind, a visible improvement is perceived. The 
lowest class of writers, and of readers, become 
daily less superficial ; and a progress has begun at 
the lower extreme of society, which will gradually 
ascend through all its gradations, and buoy them up 
higher in the scale of intellect. As the most ex- 
cellent methods are in danger of degenerating into 
abuse, the inductive philosophy washable to be per- 
verted, and what was experimental was in danger 
of becoming empirical ; he who had for his pro- 
vince to examine a few facts, out of the multitude 
of nature's appearances, incurred the risk of lean- 
ing too much on his own observations, and of not 
making sufficient allowance for the mighty space 
which lay uncontrolled beyond him ; or, if he con- 
fined his view merely to the narrow tract which 
was assigned to him, his mind dwindled down 
to the limited field of vision, and he was cut off 
from that pervading union, which harmonizes the re- 
motest star, with the flower beneath our feet, and 
represents the universe as the work of the same 
Infinite Intelligence. 

But the very multitude of facts that have been 
discovered, without a binding link to connect them, 
and which in the end will become a burden, even 
to the memory, will necessarily force the mind to 
discover the laws which regulate them, and will 



70 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

lead to a higher exercise of the faculties, as they 
ascend to the remotest secrets of philosophy. 

The effects of printing have been limited by two 
great obstacles, force, and the deficiency of educa- 
tion. The reformation, as we have said, was ar- 
rested, by the kings of Christendom making up 
their old quarrel with the Pope, and throwing the 
whole weight of their power and vengeance into 
the opposite scale ; but the influence of printing is 
undermining tyranny, as well as superstition, and 
now that the warfare is begun, despotism must 
either replunge men into the dark ages, and destroy 
the press, or be destroyed by it ; since the full in- 
fluence of each is incompatible with the existence 
of the other. But the greatest obstacle to the 
power of the press, has been the want of general 
education ; without education, printing can effect 
nothing, the former is to the latter what the female 
deities of India were to the gods, to whom they 
were mated ; the recipients of their power, and 
the medium by which their energy flowed into 
operation. As education is extended, the power of 
the press is enlarged, and an action is exerted in the 
moral world, more subtle and rapid than that fluid 
in the natural, which lightens at once over the face 
of the heavens, and shatters whatever barriers are 
opposed to it. 

NEWSOCIAL ORDER IN AMERICA. 

XVII. The influence of America has been limit- 
ed by the monopolies of the mother countries, and 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 71 

the yoke they have imposed upon their colonies ; 
but as the last of these fetters is nearly broken, and 
the new world is left to take its own course, open 
to all the influences that have arisen upon mankind, 
and free from those clogs, the broken shackles of 
former times, which still impede the march of Eu- 
rope, it will soon display the spirit of modern times 
rising with fresh vigour from the bosom of new na- 
tions, moulding to its own will, and filling with its 
own genius the nascent commonwealths of the 
new continent. America is to modern Europe, 
what its western colonies were to Greece, the land 
of aspirations and dreams, the country of daring 
enterprise, and the asylum of misfortune, which re- 
ceives alike the exile and the adventurer, the dis- 
contented and the aspiring, and promises to all a 
freer life, and a fresher nature. 

The European emigrant might believe himself as 
one transported to a new world, governed by new 
laws, and finds himself at once raised in the scale 
of being — the pauper is maintained by his own la- 
bour, the hired labourer works on his own account, 
and the tenant is changed into a proprietor, while 
the depressed vassal of the old continent becomes 
co-legislator, and co-ruler in a government where 
all power is from the people, and in the people, and 
for the people. The world has not witnessed an 
emigration like that, taking place to America; so 
extensive in its range, so immeasurable in its con- 
sequences, since the dispersion of mankind ; or, 
perhaps since the barbarians broke into the empire, 



72 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

when the hunter or pastoral warrior exchanged the 
lake of eagles, or the dark mountains, for the vine- 
yards and olive-yards of the Romans. As attrac- 
tion in the material world is ever withdrawing the 
particles of matter from what is old and effete, and 
combining them into newer and more beautiful 
forms ; so a moral influence is withdrawing their 
subjects from the old and worn-out governments of 
Europe, and hurrying them across the Atlantic, to 
participate in the renovated youth of the new re- 
publics of the west; an influence which, like that 
of nature, is universal, and without pause or relaxa- 
tion ; and hordes of emigrants are continually 
swarming off, as ceaseless in their passage, and 
crowded, and unreturning, as the travellers to eter- 
nity. Even those who are forced to remain be- 
hind, feel a melancholy restlessness, like a bird 
whose wing is crippled, at the season of migration, 
and look forward to America, as to the land of the 
departed, where every one has some near relative, 
or dear friend gone before him. A voice like that 
heard before the final ruin of Jerusalem, seems to 
whisper to those who have ears to hear, " Let us 
depart hence." 

Every change in America has occasioned a cor- 
respondent change in Europe ; the discovery of it 
overturned the systems of the ancients, and gave a 
new face to adventure and to knowledge; the 
opening of its mines produced a revolution in pro- 
perty ; and the independence of the United States 
overturned the monarchy of France, and set fire 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 73 

to a train which has not yet fully exploded. In 
every thing, its progress is interwoven with the 
fates of Europe. At every expansion of American 
influence, the older countries are destined to under- 
go new changes, and to receive a second character 
from the colonies which the}' have planted, whose 
greatness is on so much larger a scale than that of 
the parent countries, and which will exhibit those 
improvements which exist in miniature in Europe, 
unfettered by ancient prejudices, and dilated over 
another continent. 

CONCLUSION. 

XVIII. All these influences are in the course of 
receiving a full development, the boundary that 
confined them is mouldering and worn by their ac- 
tion, and time alone will ripen them into their ful- 
ness of strength, and bring them into contact with 
the remotest recesses of the world ; but mind may 
anticipate the work of time, and hasten the disclo- 
sure of that new series of years, which even now 
are ready to expand their wings, unstained with the 
soil of ancient barbarism, and reflecting the colours 
of heaven, 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 



PART SECOND. 
THE FUTURE. 



NEW ERA OF SOCIETY. 

I. According to Schelling there are three eras of 
existence. The first, which is past, was the reign 
of Chance and Chaos ; the second, which now ex- 
ists, is that of Nature ; and the third is, that of an 
Infinite Mind, which does not yet exist, but will 
hereafter be developed, and will absorb all finite 
being. Without entering a verdict of philosophic 
lunacy against the greatest of living men, as some 
of his countrymen have called him, or stopping to 
attend to those fields of science in nubibus, which 
have been cultivated by the school of Kant with so 
much diligence, fervour and self-applause, it may 
merely be remarked, that this bright sally of trans- 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 75 

ceiidental insanity affords no bad illustration of that 
which takes place in human society. We are now 
living in the " era of nature," in which the various 
forms of intellect are developed and flourish ; but 
that general mind is only about to disclose itself, 
which will embrace, cherish, and reunite all into one 
limitless and all-pervading spirit of intelligence. 

The whole of the intellectual world is germinant, 
and a kindly breath might awaken and unfold it ; 
every part of science is susceptive of immediate 
additions ; and, in most cases, the improvement is 
so obvious of execution, that each labourer might 
have his part assigned to him, and a tower of obser- 
vation and intellectual discovery might be raised 
without delay. 

If the situation of science is favourable, the situ- 
ation of England is no less so. No cloud in sum- 
mer was ever more fully surcharged with electrici- 
ty than England is with moral energy, which needs 
but a conductor to issue out in any given direction. 
England has become the capital of a new moral 
world — the eminence on which intellectual light 
strikes before it visits the nations — the fountain- 
head of the rivers that are going forth to water the 
earth ; it is at her option to have well-wishers in 
every country, and to place herself at the head of 
the most numerous sect that ever existed, and which 
is daily increasing — the men who are panting for 
civil and religious liberty. 

Were Alfred restored to life, as it was once be- 
lieved of the just, that they should again tread the 



76 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

earth in the latter days, and enjoy the fruits of that 
which, in their first life, they had planted in equity 
and righteousness, that peerless king, who, in cir- 
cumstances desperate, and amid the wreck of af- 
fairs, restored England to its former sovereignty, 
and in the pitchy midnight of the dark ages struck 
out so many lights that science began to respire, 
and the mind to awake from its lethargy, could, at 
this moment, with a touch set the social machine in 
movement, and perfecting the institutions of his na- 
tive country, and awakening its genius to new and 
untried flights, he would be regarded as the univer- 
sal legislator, from whose hand the earth was to re- 
ceive new laws, and to whom knowledge would 
stand revealed in her hidden sources and ultimate 
powers. Or even were a mind of the first order 
to arise, though divested of political authority — 
should an understanding capacious as Aristotle's 
again traverse over all that was already known, and 
collecting real observations instead of imaginary 
powers and qualities, stamp the whole with the im- 
press of his genius, and reduce it, not into an arti- 
ficial system, but into a correspondency and sympa- 
thy with e very-day reality, how would each page 
teem with vitality like nature herself? Not the 
words alone, as was said of Ulysses' Oratory, 
would fall thick as the winter snows, but the thoughts 
also — pressed and condensed together, and each 
pregnant with new discoveries, as with an ever-fruit- 
ful progeny, they would make the reader rich, not 
in barren syllogisms and endless disputations, but 



IK KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 77 

m views which went deep into the nature of things, 
and possessed an abiding likeness in the world with- 
out them, — while Aristotle, no longer reduced to 
mere heads of lectures, and the skeleton of his 
warm and living discourses, would appear such as 
he was, and such as the ancients found him — as elo- 
quent as universal, bringing with him all his collect- 
ed copiousness, and pouring down the golden flood 
of his divine rhetoric, " Veniet aureum fundens flu- 
men Aristoteles." Or if Bacon could return to fin- 
ish the edifice of which he laid the foundations, or 
renew the impulse which he first imparted, and with 
that more than mortal eye which foresaw science 
before it existed, could survey all its parts, and mark 
its deficiencies — as the ostrich is fabled to hatch her 
€ggs by gazing on them — his regard alone would 
discover and bring forth the latent resources of 
knowledge, and quicken to vigour and productive- 
ness all its dormant energies. His organum would 
be refitted and perfected ; and, as the art of invent- 
ing grows with the inventions themselves, all its 
powers would be amplified and exalted, and the veil 
would be raised from nature as far as a mortal hand 
could withdraw it. Yet such men, however emi- 
nent, could be aiding but for a time ; and the im- 
pulse that they gave, like themselves, would pass 
away. The "greatest individual is every way cir- 
cumscribed, and the limitations of his narrow and 
brief existence pursue him in whatever he attempts. 
Numbers and succession can alone enable men to 
attain that which is great and perpetual ; and an as- 
7 



78 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

sociation of feebler minds transmitting their pur- 
poses to ever-renewed successors, would at length 
be able to accomplish what Alfred, or Aristotle, or 
Bacon, in the height of fortune, and in the maturity 
of genius, would have failed to effect. 

Limited as the mind of man is, the sciences are 
still more imperfect and incomplete than might 
have been expected, even from his imperfect intel- 
ligence. With two or three exceptions, none of his 
discoveries have been reduced into their simplest 
and most certain form. The light is every where 
broken in upon by darkness, owing to the unfin- 
ished state in which the different branches of know- 
ledge have been left, and to the want of co-opera- 
tion, and of a corresponding and harmonious method 
of investigation, and to that despair of arriving at 
truth, which is only partially shaken off when some 
new discovery promises at last a revelation of na- 
ture. But science is not only incomplete, even as 
it exists, it has been very imperfectly adapted to 
practice ; numbers of truths have remained un- 
fruitful from want of application, which might have 
added new comforts and embellishments to life, and 
the populace and the sages of the same country 
seem to belong to different periods of the human 
mind, while the theories of the one are derived 
from the knowledge of the present day, and the 
practices of the other are regulated by the igno- 
rance of long past years. Undoubtedly, in the 
present age, there is a strong tendency to improve- 
ment, and science is receiving accessions, minute 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 79 

but many, which are ever enlarging the extent of 
her dominions, and this, not from the intentions or 
device of any combined number of men, but from 
individuals being borne forward by the general 
stream. Yet it is not less desirable that means 
should be pointed out for accelerating this tenden- 
cy, for exempting it from occasional hindrances, 
and for combining all favouring aids into one stead- 
ily and regularly propelling power. 

VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION. 

II. A new influence is arising, which is sufficient- 
ly able to supply the deficiencies of governments 
in attaining ends which they cannot reach, and in 
affording aids over which they have no control — 
the power of voluntary association. There is no 
object to which this power cannot adapt itself ; no 
resources which it may not ultimately command ; 
and a few individuals, if the public mind is gradual- 
ly prepared to favour them, can lay the foundations 
of undertakings which would have baffled the might 
of those who reared the pyramids ; and the few 
who can divine the tendency of the age before it 
is obvious to others, and perceive in which direc- 
tion the tide of public opinion is setting in, may 
avail themselves of the current, and concentrate 
every breath that is favourable to their course. 
The exertions of a scanty number of individuals 
may swell into the resources of a large party, 
which, collecting at last all the national energies in- 
to its aid, and availing itself of the human sympa- 



80 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

thies that are in its favour, may make the field of its 
labour and its triumph as wide as humanity itself. 
The elements being favourably disposed, a speck of 
cloud collects vapours from the four winds, which 
overshadow the heavens ; and all the varying and 
conflicting events of life, and the no less jarring and 
discordant passions of the human breast, when 
once the channel is sufficiently deepened, will rush 
into one accelerating torrent, and be borne to- 
wards their destined end. The power of volunta- 
ry association, though scarcely tried as yet, is of 
largest promise for the future ; and when extended 
upon a great scale, is the influence most removed 
from the shock of accidents and the decay of earth- 
ly things, renewing its youth with renewed genera- 
tions, and becoming immortal through the perpetu- 
ity of the kind. These societies of free consent 
are peculiarly of Gothic growth, and flourished 
most in the Anglo-Saxon times. There, amid the 
weakness of government, the evils of anarchy, or 
the disasters of adverse events, individuals formed 
themselves into new alliances, and made them- 
selves powerful by union for purposes of aggres- 
sion or defence ; and the German chief with his 
band of military clients, and the Saxon sodalities 
formed to ward off disorder and rapine, supplied 
the loosened bands of government, and made up 
for the weakness or the want of political organiza- 
tion. When, however, governments were knit to- 
gether, and had grown into strength, and were able 
to shield those that sought their protection, those so* 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 81 

cieties, instituted for personal security or private 
adventure, gave way to, and respected the regular 
action of established law. But though the two 
main objects of political society, the preservation 
of property and of persons, are admirably com- 
passed by modern institutions, yet there are many 
objects conducive to the well-being of civil life, and 
perfective of human nature, which are of too airy 
and volatile an essence to be overtaken by the fixed 
and cumbrous movement of society at large, but 
which may be secured and appropriated by volun- 
tary association. 

The favourable result of all undertakings de- 
pends upon the previous state and preparation of 
the world, no less than the vegetation of the seed 
does upon the soil into which it is cast; those who 
have proceeded farthest in their attempts, and 
gained the point at which they aimed, had the 
stream in their favour, and were more indebted to 
the strength of the current than to their own indi- 
vidual efforts ; their superiority to others consisted 
chiefly in their superior discernment ; and they 
seemed to lead their contemporaries, merely be- 
cause they themselves were most led by the spirit 
of the age, and took a favourable situation for being 
borne forward by the tide, which they had the sa- 
gacity to see was upon the turn. The Greeks would 
have conquered the Persians without Alexander; 
the Romans would have been enslaved had Caesar 
never been born, and the Arabians would have been 
deceived by other impostors had Mahomet never 
7* 



$2 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

professed himself a prophet. The number of simi- 
lar aspirants among their countrymen and con- 
temporaries, and their partial success in the same 
line of pursuit, prove, that if they had been re- 
moved, others would have run the same career of 
fortune, and that it was not from any singularity at- 
tached to their individual merit or fate, but from 
having the main stream of events in their favour, 
that each of them reached the goal and obtained 
the prize. If we would divine the future, we 
must look to the tendency of the age in which we 
live, and if we would derive an augury for the fa- 
vourable result of a general society, having for its 
object the improvement and extension of science, 
we shall find it in the power and prosperity of so- 
cieties already existing, which, though instituted 
with small and unfavourable beginnings, already 
by their number and by their success, give strong 
indications of how flourishing they are likely to be- 
come, and what an influence they are destined to 
exert in the attainment of purposes, either religious 
or benevolent. From this decided tendency to as- 
sociation, it might be argued against the utility of a 
general society^, such as now proposed, that the 
eommunity, if left to itself, would gradually form 
voluntary unions for the removal of all its incon- 
veniences and the attainment of all its wishes, and 
that the same spirit of the age, which has already 
called so many into being, would create others 
where they are wanted, and complete their num- 
ber. And this, certainly, to a great extent, would 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 83 

be the case ; but a large and universal association 
for all objects in which the interests of humanity 
are concerned, would not only accelerate the for- 
mation of all the rest, but at once would give them 
their best possible shape and bearing, as in a fluid, 
which is about to crystalize if a crystal be inserted, 
the whole mass not only immediately shoots into 
other crystals, but these are determined by the first, 
both in their form and dimensions. 

The associations which have sprung up so nu- 
merous during the last twenty years, and which 
have struck their roots through every part of the 
country, and have drawn, from the contributions of 
persons of all ranks, a sum which formerly would 
have been deemed incredible, and the bare suppo- 
sition of which would have been placed among the 
extravagancies of imagination, have been chiefly 
religious ; and though some of them were formed 
previously, they have grown under the shade of the 
Bible Society, which, far from dwarfing the rest, 
has imparted to them a share of its own vigour and 
affluence, and it is a happy omen that religion will 
be predominant in the time to come, when it is thus 
found early awake and beforehand with other pur- 
suits in availing itself of the new-born influences 
which have sprung up in the moral world. Nume- 
rous, however, and increasing as these societies 
may be, they by no means interfere with a general 
society for promoting knowledge and civilization, 
but give the best hopes of what a mighty engine for 
good such a power might be if placed in the hands 



84 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

of men of energy, benevolence, and wisdom. A 
society like this, while it assisted and organized the 
branches that were derived from it, would give 
them an impulse from without which they could 
not receive from themselves, while the view of 
those who are occupied in a single department 
must be confined to it alone, and derives no assist- 
ance from a wider survey, and no new suggestions 
from an extended comparison, the general and Re- 
gent Society would afford the advantages of an 
eminence, and a prospect which comprehended 
within its ample range every subordinate depart- 
ment, with all their various bearings ; the weakness 
of each would be supplied from the strength of the 
others, and a freshness of view, and an ever-re- 
newed incitement would be communicated from the 
whole to its parts ; and the practical experience of 
those who occupied a particular station, would be 
united to the largeness of view of those who sur- 
veyed them all. 

SUPPLIES THE PRIMA PHILOSOPHIA. 

III. The Prima Philosophia of Bacon was but a 
vain imagination, and a chimera substituted to fill 
up at all hazards the chasm occasioned by discard- 
ing the ontology of the schoolmen, itself a chimera, 
and far from enriching the subordinate sciences, has 
never been the least available to the pursuit of truth; 
but a general society would answer all the purposes 
which that feigned universal science vainly aimed 
at, and from an inexhaustible well-head would send 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 85 

copious refreshments over the whole region of 
knowledge. And it would not only revive and in- 
vigorate those societies which are already in being, 
but be instrumental in the formation of others 
wherever they are wanted, and leave no vacancy 
unsupplied, nor any position favourable for the dis- 
covery of truth unoccupied. 

In the most civilized states there are strong re- 
mains of ancient barbarism, " prisci vestigia ruris " 
and in the most enlightened minds some scattered 
clouds of ancient ignorance. Though Bacon had 
the largest mind that ever was, and by a natural 
devination the most prophetic — and though, Janus- 
like, it looked both before and after, yet his regard 
was most brightly and ardently turned towards the 
future, and his communings were chiefly with things 
that were yet to be ; nevertheless, he had not alto- 
gether cleared himself from the mire of the school- 
men, and he resembled the lion, described by Mil- 
ton, but half animated and shaped from the original 
clay, and " with his hinder parts struggling to get 
free." Two of the greatest mistakes that he has 
made in his advancement of learning, consist in the 
places he has assigned, to what he terms the prima 
philosophia or universal science, and to metaphysics; 
yet the mistake proceeded from a laudable motive. 
" I doubt not," says Bacon, " but it will easily ap- 
pear to men of judgment, that in this and other par- 
ticulars, wheresoever my conception and notion 
may differ from the ancient, yet I am studious to 
keep the ancient terms. For, hoping well to de« 



00 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

liver myself from mistaking, by the order and per- 
spicuous expressing of that I do propound ; I am 
otherwise zealous and affectionate to recede as little 
from antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as may 
stand with truth, and the proficience of knowledge." 
But the hope above expressed was ill-grounded, for 
neither was the order, as we shall show, commenda- 
ble, nor the perspicuity remarkable, and Bacon was 
destined to exhibit a striking instance of the truth of 
his own excellent remark, that " although we think 
we govern our words, yet certain it is, that words, 
as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the under- 
standing of the wisest, and mightily entangle and 
pervert the judgment." His intention of retaining 
names and discarding things, is, for this reason, a 
principle more commendable in politics than in phi- 
losophy ; but neither is it correct to say, that the 
terms in this case are retained, for metaphysics and 
prima philosopbia, which Bacon himself asserts to 
have stood for the same imaginary science, are by 
him placed apart and appointed as the terms of two 
new and separate studies; thus, to the confusion 
occasioned by a change of things, is added the 
double confusion of a change of denominations, 
when not only the names are changed relatively to 
the tilings specified, but the terms are changed rela- 
tively to each other. A second error arises from 
Bacon having had terms to dispose of before he 
had subjects to which he could appropriate them ; 
so that for the one term he is obliged to invent a 
science, and for the other to partition a science, ma* 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 87 

king a distinction in it without a division ; for when 
he divides natural philosophy between physics and 
metaphysics, and makes " physic contemplate that 
which is inherent in matter, and therefore transito- 
ry, and metaphysics that which is abstracted and 
fixed," he recedes from his own philosophy, and 
the theory to which he was inclined, namely the 
atomic, and passing from the school of Democritus 
to that of Aristotle, relapses into the imaginary 
" form" of thinking of the schoolmen, and the 
Stagyrite. But since, whatever we can discover 
of the interior form or laws of bodies, we must 
learn from their visible and external changes, what 
Bacon calls metaphysics, can no more be separated 
from physics than the end can be separated from 
the means, and conclusions from the facts on which 
they are founded ; there is a continuity in natural 
science which rejects this artificial and unnecessary 
distinction. Speaking of his philosophia prima, 
Bacon says, " because in a writing of this nature I 
avoid all subtilty, my meaning touching this original 
or universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross 
description by negative ; that it be a receptacle for 
all such profitable observations and axioms as fall 
not within the compass of any of the special parts 
of philosophy or sciences, but are more common, 
and of a higher stage. Now, that there are many 
of that kind need not to be doubted." But it may 
very much be doubted ; all the examples which Ba- 
con brings are puerile and futile ; they are either so 
true as to be truisms, as, " Is not the rule, Si inse- 



88 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

qualibus aequalia addas, omnia erunt insequalia, an 
axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics ?" or 
they are fantastic, as in the following query: — 
" Was not the Persian magic a reduction or corres- 
pondence of the principles and architecture of na- 
ture, to the rules and policy of governments V* Nor 
are the other examples he brings of more weight 
and value to his present purpose. 

" In philosophy," Bacon observes, " the contem- 
plations of man do either penetrate to God or are 
circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted 
upon himself. Out of which several inquiries, there 
do arise three knowledges, divine philosophy, natural 
philosophy, and human philosophy, or humanity. 
For all things are marked and stamped with this 
triple character, of the power of God, the difference 
of nature, and the use of man. But because the 
distributions and partitions of knowledge are not 
like several lines that meet in one angle, and so 
touch but in a point, but are like branches of a tree, 
that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and 
quantity of entireness and continuance, before it 
come to discontinue and break itself into arms and 
boughs ; therefore, it is good, before we enter into 
the former distribution, to erect and constitute one 
universal science by the name of philosophia prima, 
primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and 
common way, before we come where the ways 
part and divide themselves." That community in 
the sciences to which Bacon alludes, has a double 
foundation ; it is either subjective or objective ; it 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 89 

either proceeds from the same instrument being ap- 
plied to all studies, the mind and its powers ; and the 
rules of its conduct being the same to whatever pur- 
suit they are directed ; or objectively from the uni- 
verse, as being the work of one intelligence, and ves- 
tiges of the same Maker pervading it throughout ; but 
in neither case does this sameness or community give 
rise to separate science. What relates to the first 
appertains to true logic, or the science of conduct- 
ing the human faculties in the search after truth ; 
what relates to the second either belongs to divinity, 
and proves the unity of the Godhead, and marks 
design in creation ; or when it exhibits traces and 
divinations of new discoveries, proceeding from 
the similarity which runs through every part of na- 
ture, it is again referrible to logic, and contributes 
its part to form some of those indicia which are to 
guide us in the progressive discovery of truth. — 
Perhaps too much is attributed by Bacon in the be- 
fore-cited passage to the community of these three 
parts of knowledge. Instead of comparing the 
three divisions of science to the " branches of a 
tree that meet in the stem," they might more justly 
be compared to stock shots, which meet only in a 
root, proceeding, indeed, from one source, and 
nourished by the same sap, but the connexion of 
which terminates almost as soon as they are dis- 
coverable. It thus appears, that there cannot be 
any universal science, separate or disjoined from 
all the rest, and yet the observations that Bacon ap- 
plies to this imaginary science, on the supposition of 
8 



$0 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

its existence, are exceedingly just. " Another error 
is, that after the distribution of particular arts and 
sciences, men have abandoned universality, or phi- 
losophia prima, which cannot but cease, and stop all 
progression. For no discovery can be made upon 
a flat or a level ; neither is it possible to discover 
the more remote and deeper parts of any science, 
if you stand but upon the level of the same science, 
and ascend not to a higher science." Though a 
universal science or philosophia prima be imaginary 
and chimerical, and therefore cannot sustain the 
high offices which are assigned to it, yet a universal 
association of philosophers would more than supply 
its place, and would amply realize all those advan- 
tages which are pointed out by Bacon. That first 
philosophy, even if it existed, would be but a dead 
letter, and the passive receptacle of the general no- 
tions that were confided to it ; but the general asso- 
ciation would be a living spirit, and would not only 
retain and reflect the truths which it was its province 
to collect and embody, but would send them forth 
afresh in ever-living emanations. 

OBJECTIONS TO ASSOCIATION. 

IV. There can be only three objections to a 
general association, either that it is superseded by 
particular societies, or by general societies, such as 
the Royal Society, and the Academy of Sciences ; 
or lastly, that it is visionary and impracticable. The 
first objection we have considered before, and it is 
sufficiently refuted by the above-cited observation of 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 91 

Bacon, that " no discovery can be made upon aflat 
or a level." 

There can be no doubt that the Royal Society, 
and the Institute, have been of essential use to the 
progress of science ; and so far they are an excel- 
lent proof of the utility of associations formed for 
the advancement of knowledge. The observations 
of Laplace to this purport are very just. — La Na- 
ture est tellement variee dans ses productions et 
dans ses phenomenes, il est si difficile d'en penetrer 
les causes, que pour la connaitre et la forcer a nous 
devoiler ses lois, il faut qu'un grand nombre d'- 
hommes reunissent leurs lumieres et leurs efforts. 
Cette reunion devient surtout necessaire, quand le 
progres des sciences, multipliant leurs points de con- 
tact, et ne permettant plus a un seul homme de les 
approfondir toutes, elles ne peuvent recevuir que de 
plusieurs savans, les secours mutuels qu'elles se de- 
mandent." 

It is from considering what these societies have 
already accomplished, and how far they are inferior 
in power and extension to the general society now 
proposed, that we shall be able to estimate the large- 
ness of the benefits which the latter would confer. 
The old and established societies were of greatest 
utility at first when their numbers were smaller and 
more select, and when the difficulties of scientific 
intercourse were greater, and the method of induc- 
tion being less followed, required to be established 
and diffused by a rallying point being afforded to its 
few and scattered followers. The fame and phi- 



92 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



losophy of Bacon are much indebted to their efforts ; 
and the free unrestrained communication of senti- 
ment promoted by them, had no doubt much effect 
in breaking down ancient theories, and in doing 
away remaining prejudices. But the more nume- 
rous the Royal Society became, the less intimate 
was the intercourse between its members ; and it 
was the less needful when the true method of ex- 
perimenting was fixed on firm foundations, and il- 
lustrated by the brighest examples. Thus, while all 
great attainments and acquisitions continued to be 
the result of solitary labour and effort, the Royal 
Society became chiefly useful in giving the first inti- 
mation of new discoveries, in publishing at its ex- 
pense papers, which, owing to the want of public 
patronage for abstract science, might have been 
lost ; and in preserving the shreds of investigations 
and the odds and ends of science in its miscella- 
neous transactions, which could not have found a 
place in a regular treatise. The French Academy 
had the advantage of remaining more select, and 
therefore of constituting a stricter bond of union 
among its limited members, and by the support 
which the government has afforded through its me- 
dium to abstract science, and by the brilliant results 
which have followed patronage, so wisely bestowed, 
it has reared an imperishable monument to the mu- 
nificence of the state ; and while all the trophies 
of victory purchased by so much blood and treasure 
have been overthrown, the discoveries that have 
been made by a small expenditure, which was in- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 93 

deed a wise economy, will form a bright and en- 
during link in the destiny of man, as long as he is 
distinguished according to the description of the 
poet, by his lofty regard and his countenance raised 
towards the heavens. Yet the principal advantage 
which Laplace ascribes to these socioties, they have 
realized very imperfectly, or at least very indirectly. 
" Mais le principal avantage des academies, est l'es- 
prit philosophique qui doit s'y introduire, et de la se 
repandre dans toute une nation, et sur tous les ob- 
jets." They have never been formed upon a broad 
enough basis, nor have they themselves been suffi- 
ciently put in movement to communicate a wide and 
national impulse. It is only from the solitary labours 
of individual philosophers, and not from any joint ef- 
forts, that mankind have been enlightened and great- 
ly improved, although these solitary works may be 
allowed to have received an indirect improvement 
from the intercourse and exchange of opinion, be- 
tween men following the same scientific pursuits : 
but a universal society, not restricted to any defined 
path, but free to range over the whole field of know- 
ledge ; and not merely comparing opinions, and 
discussing what already had been discovered, but 
laying open all the deficiencies of knowledge, and 
proposing, by whatever aids could be procured, to 
carry on at once every part, and to give an accele- 
rated movement to the whole, would have infinite 
advantages over the societies which now exist, how- 
ever excellent they may be, but whose highest aim 
is to hear of new discoveries, and discuss then- value, 
8* 



94 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

and who must place the advancement of the body 
of science among the objects that are equally be- 
yond their resources and their hopes. 

The last objection is, that such a society is vision- 
ary and impracticable ; there is a large body of the 
same class with the critics of Columbus, who find 
every undertaking to be perfectly simple, as soon as 
it is accomplished, and altogether visionary, before 
it is effected ; with them, time is the only demon- 
strator, and to time they must be left. Probably an 
attempt to form a universal association might be 
premature at the present moment, but before an- 
other generation passes, such a society is likely to 
be in active operation. Since authority with most 
men is of more weight than truth, the following ob- 
servations of Bacon, which combine both, are suf- 
ficient to refute the notion of the impossibility of 
such a society being formed, or of its attaining 
those objects in their full extent, which it is intended 
to effect. "I take it those things are to be held 
possible, which may be done by some person, 
though not by every one ; and which may be done 
by many, though not by any one ; and which may 
be done in succession of ages, though not within 
the hour-glass of one man's life ; and which may be 
done by public designation, though not by private 
endeavour. But notwithstanding, if any man 
will take to himself rather that of Solomon, Dicit 
piger, leo est in via, than that of Virgil, Possunt 
quia posse videntur ; I shall be content that my la- 
bours be esteemed but as the better sort of wishes ; 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 95 

for as it asketh some knowledge to demand a ques- 
tion not impertinent, so it requireth some sense to 
make a wish not absurd." 

THE SURVEY OF SCIENCE. 

V. The first object of a general association 
would be, to go over the same ground which has 
been traversed by Bacon, in his advancement of 
learning, and to form a complete survey of the ex- 
isting state of science. Many of the objects point- 
ed out in that work have been partially t>r com- 
pletely attained; but still it is melancholy to ob- 
serve, how many of the deficiencies there noted re- 
main deficiencies still, and that large portions of the 
ample field he surveyed are lying as waste and neg- 
lected as when he found them and described them. 
No king has arisen with a mind large enough to 
conceive or execute the " Opera Basilica," which 
Bacon very unfortunately assigned to kings, if ever 
he wished them to be accomplished. Universities 
still " have a malign aspect and influence upon the 
growth of science," and notwithstanding King 
James's maxim, lauded by Bacon as most wise and 
princely, "that in all usages and precedents, the 
times must be considered wherein they first began ; 
which, if they were weak and ignorant, it deroga- 
tet-h from the authority of the usage and leaveth it 
for suspect," yet these unchangeable bodies still as- 
sert and amply vindicate their pedigree from the 
dark ages. 

The very first work which Bacon proposed — A 



96 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

literary history, may still be noted as deficient. — - 
The part of it which has been most cultivated is 
that which enumerates the metaphysical opinions of 
the ancients ; and yet I would prefer the brief no- 
tices of them which are to be found in the writing? 
of Cicero, corrupted and infected as these notices 
are with the colouring and doubts of the academic 
philosophy, to all the other works that have been 
accumulated on the same subject. The earliest 
historians of metaphysics in modern times excelled 
in collecting the mass of opinions, and in separa- 
ting it from the spirit of the ancient philosophy, 
which gave that mass its coherence : and the later 
writers of the same class, who are chiefly of the 
school of Kant, will not allow the Greeks to speak 
their own sentiments, but force them, at all hazards, 
to transcendentalize, as if one and all of them had 
spent his probationary year in solving the barbaric- 
terminology of Kant. 

But a literary history, un confined to any par- 
ticular branch of science, and enlarged to compre- 
hend the whole progress of knowledge, joined to 
an enumeration of the causes that made knowledge 
progressive, has scarcely been attempted, and can 
never be well executed until the history of each 
branch is thoroughly digested and completed. — 
These observations apply to the commencement 
of Bacon's survey ; but to go through the whole of 
it, and do it full justice, would be a work of itself: 
and in the variety of its topics ought to be assigned 
to a society rather than to an individual in this ad- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 97 

vanced stage of knowledge — when the parts are 
far separated, and a single life is not sufficient to ob- 
tain an intimate acquaintance with them all. In 
prosecuting a survey of the present state of know- 
ledge, a universal association might find employment 
highly conducive to future discovery ; and a work 
which would give back the image of our present at- 
tainments would be the best preparation for enter- 
ing upon a new untrodden path, stretching beyond 
the bounds of all that has been hitherto acquired. — 
Such a general survey would advance science by 
the very act of its being made ; the very stirring 
up of all its parts would conduce to their future 
productiveness, as the mere turning up of the soil 
augments its fertility and adds to the plenty of the 
ensuing harvest. Science, while it was surveyed, 
would be unintentionally enriched, and seeds that 
had long remained dormant in it, being brought to 
light, would immediately vegetate. What was al- 
ready acquired would gain in value ; and the line 
would be clear and defined from which others must 
depart to obtain fresh accessions. A society having 
possessed this vantage ground, would have a clear 
view of its present resources and future prospects ; 
and occupying the outlets to fresh discoveries, might 
advance at pleasure in whatever direction it chose. 
But the great advantage in this survey would be the 
noting of all the defects, and the exposure of what- 
ever was weak, unfinished, or ill-accomplished, and 
the impression that would be broadly and strongly 
given, that much remained to be done before know- 



98 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

ledge attained to its fair and just proportions; for 
every discovery has been preceded by a want be- 
ing previously felt. Without this feeling, inven- 
tions, even if presented to observation, would not 
be attended to or would be soon forgotten. Ne- 
cessity, in this sense, has truly been the mother of 
all inventions ; but society has many wants without 
being generally sensible of them ; and hence the 
advantage of these wants being brought strongly 
and repeatedly into notice. It is one of the best 
maxims of Bacon, that the opinion of plenty is 
among the causes of want ; and it would be doing 
good service to this age, elated like Alcibiades with 
the extent of its possessions, to point out how small 
a portion these possessions occupy in the uni- 
versal map of knowledge, and in the newly-awa- 
kened sense of its limited attainments, the general 
mind would receive a constant stimulus to strength- 
en those parts of science which are weak, and to 
supply those that are wanting. 

REVIEW OF THE PAST. 

VI. After making the survey of the present state 
of science, the next object of a general association 
would be, to make a review of the past; and this 
work would have chiefly two purposes : First, to 
narrate the history and causes of inventions and ad- 
vancements ; and, secondly, to recover if possible 
the lost arts of the ancients. Few works of la- 
bour would be more conducive to farther advance- 
ment than " a calendar resembling an inventory of 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 99 

the estate of man, of all the inventions which are 
now extant, out of which doth naturally result a 
note, what things are yet held impossible or not in- 
vented." And this is the only foundation for an art 
and method of inventing, to observe the foot-prints 
of those who have gone before, and from the reve- 
lations of the past to take divinations for the future. 
Every part and process of the method of a suc- 
cessful inquirer is important ; the approximations 
of others, the previous state of science which led 
him to the brink of discovery, the slight signs and 
intimations which he followed, and his peculiar 
habits of thought, all deserve to be registered and 
noticed. Such a work would, in some measure, 
fulfil the object of Bacon, in proposing a literary 
history ; and the method of inventions, added to 
the record of inventions, would not onjy be a trea- 
sury of knowledge, it would be the science and art 
of farther discovery. 

The second object in a review of antiquity would 
be, the recovery, as far as possible, of the lost 
knowledge of the ancients, by sifting their very 
dust, by extracting, from the most mutilated frag- 
ments of their writings, the slightest indications of 
arts that have disappeared, and extorting, by pain- 
ful investigation, every secret of their excellence, 
of their genius, their policy, and their prosperity. 
Surely, if the time is not mis-spent in re-construct- 
ing the prosody of the ancients — in restoring par- 
ticles which scarcely affect the sound, and in no- 
wise the sense — in leading a laborious life in minute 



100 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

verbal criticism, and restoring expletives which the 
author uttered and wrote almost unconsciously, the 
efforts of learned men would not be misemployed 
in discovering in what respects our predecessors 
availed themselves more amply of the bounty of 
nature than we do, and excelled us in ingenuity and 
art. If, instead of recovering a few lost letters, 
they could recover more of the spirit and of the 
inspiration — the living soul of so many immortal 
works, and could ascend still higher to the genius 
of the nation, — the spirit pervading a whole peo- 
ple, from which the genius of individuals derived 
its strength and its magic ; the public ought to hold 
itself not less their debtor. It is surprising how 
feeble the endeavours have been to dig up these, 
the most precious of the buried treasures of anti- 
quity, and how many valuable hints lie scattered 
and useless, which, if concentrated, might be aid- 
ing to science, and embellish anew the decorations 
of art. Nothing of this kind, if possible, should be 
lost, when an invention has been discarded, from 
the end which it sought to obtain being reached 
with more powerful means ; that very invention, af- 
ter the lapse of ages, if not forgotten, might have 
come again into use for a new end, not dreamed of 
at the time it was neglected. It was thus that the 
polished mirrors of metal by which the Roman 
beauties adorned themselves were thrown aside, 
and the art of polishing them so highly, disused and 
forgotten by those who could not foresee the use 
which they would one day have been of to the astro- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELTOION. 101 

nomer in reflecting the brightness of the heavens. 
Beckman's History of inventions is but a very im- 
perfect attempt to supply the deficiency of the work 
before proposed ; but if made a text book, to which 
any additional or miscellaneous observation might 
be added occasionally, and at their leisure, by those 
versant in the writings of antiquity, a very conside- 
rable collection of materials, and all mutually con- 
nected, as bearing upon the same treatise, would be 
obtained without any premeditated design, or any 
continued trouble. It however, must be owned, the 
second part of this review of antiquity would not 
be of equal importance with the first, and that re- 
searches of the kind, though not without their ad- 
vantage, are more likely to gratify curiosity than to 
be highly productive of utility ; for the present age 
has little to learn from the ancients in the proficien- 
cy of manufactures and of arts ; and the stream 
of time, and the changes of human affairs, have car- 
ried us far off from the spirit of their laws and go- 
vernments, and from the genius of their literature. 

SCIENTIFIC TRAVELLERS. 

VII. A third resource for advancing knowledge, 
is the employment of scientific travellers ; it is ama- 
zing how little we know of the countries that im- 
mediately surround us. They are always supposed 
to be known, and therefore, we know little about 
them. Much more distinct information may be 
had in voyages and travels, concerning distant and 
barbarous lands, no doubt a little heightened by ima- 
9 



102 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

gination; but still the picture of these, though over- 
charged, is more useful than the indistinct view, 
and the feeble impression which is given us by the 
trite accounts we receive of our nearer neighbours. 
It is amid discussions respecting turnips and fal- 
lows, vine-dressing, and olive culture, that we ob- 
tain the best view which we can acquire of the ex- 
ternal aspect of France, in the Minute Agricultural 
Tour of Young ; and it is from their own lighter 
works that we get the best insight into the man- 
ners and genius of the French, though in this case 
we may question with the lion in the fable, whether 
a different painter would not have made a conside- 
rable difference in the picture ; and while tourists 
through neighbouring countries write as vaguely as 
if they had travelled by moonlight, the splendid 
work of Bruce, indulging too much in the license 
allowed to a poet, but correct in the general outline, 
gives back the scenery of Africa with a vividness 
and prominence which ever abides in the recollec- 
tion. Every corner of Europe would afford copi- 
ous materials to the scientific traveller, by whom it 
was thoroughly investigated. Holland, which at 
first sight is sufficient to throw a sentimental or pic- 
turesque traveller into despair, would afford excel- 
lent gleanings and highly useful information, and a 
country upon which there is scarcely above one re- 
spectable tour, would almost enrich any nation that 
studied and copied the method of management and 
economy which runs throughout their public and 
private affairs, and makes Holland, both physically 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 103 

and morally, the creature of a patience and per- 
severance without an example, and of a cool and 
calculating prudence that has seldom or never been 
rivalled. Naturally men of most talents seek for 
a new and unexplored field, and leave others to re- 
iterate upon the same beaten but ill-defined track : 
and it thus requires the exertions and the patronage 
of a society to hold out sufficient inducement for 
the thorough investigation of countries easy of ac- 
cess, and, therefore, difficult to be made interesting. 
A residence also in the countries to be visited is 
as necessary as a fresh and unoccupied eye ; and 
he must combine both, who is to give a just de- 
scription of the country, and an accurate acquaint- 
ance with the mode of life, the literature, the as- 
pect of nature, and all the details requisite to form 
a true picture, which, unless it possess the charac- 
teristic features, will not only be deficient, but erro- 
neous. Every region has its riches of mind, as 
well as its peculiar riches of nature — some field of 
science better cultivated, or some aptitude for pe- 
culiar employments, and has amassed, during the 
course of years, many observations which have 
been neglected by others. However little suspect- 
ed of originality by its neighbours, each has its own 
point of vision which presents to it surrounding ob- 
jects in new attitudes or aspects ; and the stranger 
who becomes master of its literature receives not 
only an accession of new thoughts, but possesses a 
new medium of intellectual vision ; and even though 
the harvest to be gathered in each country were 



104 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

scanty, the materials when collected from them all, 
would amount to a large mass of information ; and 
by its variety, as well as its novelty, would enrich 
and excite the mind of the country that received it. 
This series of observations would receive facile and 
natural additions ; each country incited by example, 
would send forth its own observers, and all would 
lend their peculiar national turn of thought to give 
zest and originality to their varied observations. 

GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 

VIII. A fourth resource for promoting science 
is closely connected with the former, and would 
consist in the establishment of a correspondence 
between the learned of all nations. It would be 
one of the first requisites to furnish the scientific 
traveller with strong recommendations to the men 
of science, in the countries which he was about to 
visit, and as he received from each of them the in- 
formation peculiar to their lands, and gave in return 
every useful intelligence respecting his own, there 
would result from their intercourse an interchange 
and commerce, which would give rise in either 
country to a corresponding society, in order to ren- 
der that scientific intercourse perpetual. This ac- 
cession of minds co-operating in the same work, 
would multiply the advancements, and the resour- 
ces of all ; for it is discovery which frequently pro- 
duces discovery, and the sense of advancing which 
makes that advancement more rapid and continu- 
ous ; a noble and blameless emulation would arise 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 105 

among men, too far separated for petty and in- 
dividual jealousies, and nations would measure their 
strength, not in fields of battle, but in contests for 
enlarging the inheritance of humanity ; not for the 
sovereignty of some small district, but for rendering 
mankind at large the sovereigns of the powers of 
nature, and the masters of the elements. When 
the inventive powers of one nation began to flag, 
and when one set of truths — for truths, like the 
stars, are clustered together in constellations, — had 
been discovered, and the mind, satiate with suc- 
cess, and resting in what had already been done, was 
slow in shooting athwart the intervening vacancy 
and darkness, for new lights that would appear be- 
yond it, other nations would resume the search, and 
enter into fresh regions of discovery; while, as is 
fabled of the flight of the cranes, those that are 
foremost might successively retire for repose to the 
rear, and yet the whole body might continue to 
stretch forward without stooping to the earth their 
interminable flight. In this manner, and with such 
a correspondence between its parts, Europe could 
alone derive all the advantages to be obtained from 
a number of separate nations, concurring in the 
same career, without the inconvenience of the slow 
transmission of knowledge from one to another, oc- 
casioned by the difference of language, and the 
separation of interest. 



9* 



106 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

IMPROVED ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE. 

IX. A fifth advantage would arise to science, 
from giving the stock of knowledge we at present 
possess the simplest and most condensed arrange- 
ment. How is it that one age in the natural career 
of improvement outstrips another ? This advance- 
ment does not merely consist in the difference of 
time and trouble required for learning or discover- 
ing, but in the natural process, by which the mind 
reduces the truths it learns to the simplest form, 
throws off every thing extraneous from the method 
of arriving at truth, and instead of the various ten- 
tatives by which the discoverer groupes his way 
into an unexplored region, takes the well-known 
and certain road to the term it wishes to arrive at. 

This employment of reducing truth to its ele- 
ments, which is perhaps the most useful occupation 
of the mind, has been one of the most neglected. 
No doubt the understanding, by an instinctive pro- 
cess, facilitates its own labours, and does imper- 
fectly, and unscientifically for itself, what might be 
performed in a short period, with certainty, and for 
ever, if done with intention, and accomplished upon 
a scientific plan. But the progress of knowledge 
would be greatly accelerated, if the discovery of 
truth should immediately be followed, by the at- 
tempt to reduce the truth discovered into its due 
place in the order of science, as well as into its 
most elementary form. It is not to be expected 
that the discoverer should take this office upon 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 107 

himself; the turn of his mind is naturally leading 
him continually forward; the heat of discovery 
throws a magnifying mist over his inventions ; and 
his self-love would reluctantly admit, that what is 
so identified with himself should be reduced to its 
just dimensions ; but there is a second order of 
heads, to use the classification of Hesiod, and Ma- 
chiavel, who if not inventive of truth, are receptive 
of truth ; who are capable of soundness of judg- 
ment, and of that fineness of taste which even 
abstract science requires of those who would give 
it its best and fairest proportions. This is a work 
which many are equal to, and which is no unpleas- 
ing, though, compared with the effort of thought in 
discovery, an unlaborious exercise of the mind, and 
which is attended with more lasting reputation than 
falls to the share of many original works, and cer- 
tainly with more immediate and diffusive utility. 
But, though it may seem an easy task to reduce 
truth to its simplest form, yet there are only two 
elementary works which may be considered as mo- 
dels, Euclid's Elements, and Paley's Evidences of 
Christianity, which are perfect in their several kinds, 
and bid defiance to all rival ship ; and though these 
possess less originality than most other writings that 
aspire to any eminence, yet are they destined to 
outlive many works, which have a much larger 
share of admiration bestowed upon them at the 
present moment, and are secure, as far as it is 
possible for any human performance to be so, of 
immortality. There could be no greater benefit 



108 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

conferred upon knowledge, than the producing ele- 
mentary works of equal merit in the different 
branches of science ; and while they would form 
the taste of the student, and facilitate his labour, 
they would in an equal degree incite the discoverer 
to farther advancement, by the sense of the ground 
being well secured and cleared behind him. Great 
is the benefit that a general association would con- 
fer towards the advancement of knowledge, by 
inciting a mathematician to give to the elements of 
fluxions the same justness of proportion which 
Euclid has given to the elements of geometry ; and 
though the proceedings of geometry have a more 
visible beauty than is allowed to the hidden proces- 
ses of the sister branch of mathematics, yet the ele- 
ments of the analysis might excel the Grecian work 
in two particulars — in the philosophy of the mathe- 
matics, which the earlier age of Euclid denied to 
him ; and in marking, more distinctly, the salient 
points, by which the elements pass on to the more 
advanced portions of science. 

IMPROVED METHOD OF SCIENCE. 

X. The next object of a general association, after 
perfecting the elements of the sciences, would be 
to perfect the sciences themselves, and to supply 
each of them with the aid which their peculiar de- 
ficiencies require. Some of the sciences have shot 
up with such luxuriance, that the head is almost too 
heavy for the trunk to sustain. Others have strag- 
gled into an infinity of branches without forming a 
main stem. And others, not having taken deep 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 109 

root, nor being firmly grounded, are liable to be 
overturned with every breath of opinion. The 
higher branches of mathematical investigation, ac- 
cording to the avowal of Laplace, have become so 
diversified that they demand a division of intellec- 
tual labour, and are no longer completely the pro- 
vince of a single mind, and the later refinements of 
analysis have shot out far beyond the present wants 
of physical science ; they form a triumphant display 
of the powers of human genius, but are barren of 
benefits to human nature, and in their airy and un- 
restrained flight have left far behind them the boun- 
daries of the visible world. Yet the observation of 
Laplace is incontrovertible. " Que la Decouverte 
la plus sterile en apparence, peut avoir un jour des 
suites importantes," and it is certainly not by limit- 
ing the highest excursions of genius, but by keeping 
up an open and easier communication between the 
lower and the loftier paths of science, that the in- 
convenience of this abundant productiveness can 
best be remedied. It was not unnatural in regard- 
ing the abstruseness of the higher analysis, and its 
thin and impalpable essence, to have some doubts 
whether, ethereal as it was, it would ever come to 
be mingled in the purposes of actual life, and inter- 
woven in the grosser web of human affairs, and we 
might be inclined to assign its abstracted refine- 
ments to some quiet and intermundane spaces along 
with the deities of Lucretius, 

H Semota a nostris rebus sejunctaque longe." 



110 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

It was probably in a similar spirit of meditation, 
that Diderot imagined that the analytical writings of 
D'Alembert, and his mathematical contemporaries, 
would be a sealed book to the ages that followed 
them. " We approach the moment of a great re- 
volution in the sciences, from the leaning which 
minds appear to have to moral philosophy, belles 
lettres, the history of nature, experimental physics, 
&c. &c. I dare almost be positive that before a 
centuiy pass, there will not be reckoned three great 
geometers in Europe ; that science will stop short 
where the Bernouillis, the Eulers, Maupertuis, Clai- 
rauts, and D'Alemberts have left it. They will have 
reared the pillars of Hercules. None will go be- 
yond them — their works will remain in the ages to 
come, like the pyramids of Egypt, whose masses, 
covered with hieroglyphics, awaken in us an over- 
whelming idea of the power and the resources of 
the men who raised them." 

But instead of this lamentable prophecy being 
accomplished, the Lagranges and the Laplaces have 
gone as far beyond the Clairauts and the D'Alem- 
berts, as they outstripped their analytical predeces- 
sors ; and space, free and infinite, presents itself as 
unbounded to their successors to tempt them to 
flights still more distant and supramundane ; and 
the higher they ascend the better, provided there 
be others at intermediate stages to keep up the com- 
munication between them and the earth, as the 
vultures which bask one above another, invisible in 
the heights of the air, observe and follow the flight 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. HI 

of the lower, and appear instantaneously, as if by 
enchantment, in flocks upon the field of action. 

Chemistry has run into an opposite extreme from 
that noticed in mathematics, it abounds in fact?, but 
wants a binding link to connect them, — it is the ob- 
ject of science to reduce the multifarious appear- 
ances of nature to simplicity and order ; but chem- 
istry has almost relapsed into the state of nature, 
and its phenomena are almost as various and un- 
classified as those which the material world presents 
to an ignorant observer. In this way, experimental 
chemistry might squander itself away by its own 
fertility, and either it will damp all inquiry by the 
copiousness of its instances, and the paucity of its 
general results, or it is on the eve of disclosing a 
theory, which will introduce order and arrangement 
among its wide and far-scattered experiments. A 
general society would be highly useful at this mo- 
ment, by combining the exertions of all the chemists 
to bring the atomic theory to the test, and to insti- 
tute that multitude of experiments which are neces- 
sary either to prove its truth, and to remove all the 
remaining objections that might be urged against it, 
or to overturn it altogether, which it is not probable 
would be the case ; or so to modify it, as that its 
terms should express the general law which all the 
minute changes of bodies obey. 

Mineralogy, on the other hand, is as deficient in 
facts, as chemistry is abundant in them ; and though 
this want is in course of being removed, yet a gene- 
ral association might be beneficial in affording the 



112 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

encouragement and the pecuniary supplies requisite 
for making those very extended observations, which 
are the only foundation of a solid system of geolo- 
gy. With great geniuses it is a matter of mere 
amusement and relaxation from severe studies, to 
describe the formation of the world ; and though 
often grossly mistaken with respect to the common- 
est productions of nature, they have their revenge 
in being quite clear and explicit as to what took 
place some millions of years ago. One of the the- 
ories of the earth owes its origin to the appearances 
of the basaltic rocks in the neighbourhood of Ed- 
inburgh, and Werner, though he had an enlarged 
acquaintance with mineralogy, chiefly drew his 
knowledge of the interior of the globe from the 
" vasty deep" of the mines of Saxony. If either 
of these theories possessed any great share of truth, 
it would be a singular instance of an hypothesis 
built in its origin upon a few facts, being large and 
wide enough to embrace all the phenomena of a 
science. Werner undoubtedly was a mineralogist, 
and has laid the foundations of that branch of the 
science, but whether he was the geologist or not, 
must be left to time and observation to determine. 
After considering the state of particular sciences, 
and affording to each the aid which it seemed espe- 
cially to require, an improvement bearing upon all 
the sciences would consist in the improved delivery 
of knowledge, according to the remarks of Bacon. 
" He that delivereth knowledge desireth to deliver 
it in such a form as may be best believed, and not 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. HZ 

as may be best examined : and he that receiveth 
knowledge, desireth rather present satisfaction than 
expectant inquiry ; and so rather not to doubt, than 
not to err. Glory making the author not to lay 
open his weakness, and sloth making the disciple 
not to know his strength. But knowledge that is 
delivered as a thread to be spun on, ought to be de- 
livered and intimated if it were possible in the same 
method wherein it was invented." 

" For it is in knowledges as it is in plants, if you 
mean to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots ; 
but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is 
more assured to rest upon roots than slips ; so the 
delivery of knowledge, as it is now used, is as of 
fair bodies of trees without the roots, good for the 
carpenter but not for the planter. But if you will 
have sciences to grow, it is less matter for the shaft 
or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking 
up of the roots." 

Not that it is desirable that all the unfruitful ten- 
tatives of an inquirer after truth should be noted 
down, or even that all the circuits of the way that 
ended in a successful search, should be described ; 
but since the two methods of investigating truth, 
and of communicating truth, have each their sepa- 
rate advantages — the first being long and laborious, 
but invigorating and productive, the other being 
easy, and applicable to immediate uses, but more 
sterile of farther acquisitions — it is desirable to in- 
graft upon the latter method as much of the former 
as will bring the mind of the reader to the border 
10 



1 14 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

of new discoveries, and almost place him in the at- 
titude of invention ; and while the elements of the 
sciences should present vistas at each turn into their 
highest departments, the sciences themselves should 
offer easy and frequent outlets into the unknown re- 
gions of unexplored truth beyond them. 

It is the most common of all mistakes to run from 
one extreme into another. The reasoning powers 
of the ancients were strong, in proportion as their 
powers of observation were weak and neglected. 
It was their misfortune to begin with great dili- 
gence at the wrong end of inquiry, and to run up 
immense piles of philosophy before they had provi- 
ded them with a foundation. Modern inquirers 
are well aware of this error of their predecessors, 
their powers of observation are keen and exer- 
cised, tyut their powers of reasoning and inference 
are limited and comparatively inert ; it is now that 
the vigdur and excursiveness of the ancient philoso- 
phers might be turned to great account, when they 
would have something firmer than air to build their 
theories upon, and when the activity of their genius 
might find large occupation in reducing the facts 
already discovered into order. " L'Esprit Hu- 
main," says Laplace, " si actif dans la formation 
des systemes, a souvent attendu que l'observation 
et Pexperience lui aient fait connaitre d'importantes 
verites que le simple raisonnement eut pu lui faire 
decouvrir. C'est ainsi que Tinvention du telescope 
a suivi de plus de trois siecles, celle des verres len- 
ticulaires, et n'a meme ete due qu'au hasard." In 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 1 1 5 

the present state of knowledge, the exercise of an 
inquisitive and powerful reason, "remodelling and 
arranging the facts that are already ascertained, and 
tracing the analogies that run through the different 
sciences, as the veins that lead to and are united 
with a rich mine of discovery, would operate like 
the introduction of a new element into science, and 
would teem with varied combinations and new re- 
sults. Could the Germans free themselves from 
the trammels of Kant, and overcome their dread 
of the degradation of receiving any assistance from 
fact and experiment, and come down from those 
aerial heights, where, like the footless fowl of Indi- 
an fable, they have had their dwelling-place for 
ages without touching the earth, there is no doubt 
that their transcendent genius would augment the 
scientific possessions of Europe with additions only 
inferior to printing, and the formation of gunpow- 
der, which the Teutonic race discovered, and made 
generally known, if they did not originally invent. 

IMPROVEMENT OF THE ARTS. 

XI. After the improvement of the sciences, the 
next object that presents itself is the improvement 
of the arts, which are older than the first in the or- 
der of time, but derive from them in the order of 
nature, and ought to grow with their growth and 
strengthen with their strength ; the mutual prosperi- 
ty of both depends upon their being brought into 
perpetual contact, and each is in the most vigorous 
condition when assisted by or assisting the other, 



116 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

art being most flourishing when it is nourished by 
science, and science often the most progressive, 
when it is ministering to the wants of art. Hence 
the utility of encouraging a class of philosophers, 
whose main object it should be to make the com- 
munications more frequent and patent between 
both, — who should ever be wakeful to make the 
newest discoveries of science immediately subser- 
vient to art, or to make the wants of art felt by phi- 
losophers, in order that they may be the sooner re- 
medied. Doubtless scientific men, in the course 
of their researches^ have ever a view to their possi- 
ble application and uses ; and, on the other hand, 
those who are engaged in the processes of the 
arts, have their attention turned to the assistance 
which they may receive from any new additions to 
knowledge, and both classes of men are benefitted 
by this mutual observation and commerce ; yet it is 
evident that the benefits would be enhanced if the 
intercourse between them were methodised, and 
maintained constant and unceasing, and if the con- 
nexion between these two powers were more inti- 
mate and permanent, through whose union so many 
blessings are entailed upon mankind. 

The improvement of the arts is essentially neces- 
sary to Britain ; and it is only from her precedence 
in these that she can hope to keep her present rank 
among the nations. If there is any one principle 
ascertained by the events of history, it is this, that 
the extent of population, territory, and wealth re- 
quisite for predominance, is ever proceeding upon 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 117 

an increased scale ; the republics of Greece and 
Rome would never have attained eminence amidst 
the powerful neighbours which now surround their 
countries, or have made any impression upon the 
world, as it is constituted at the present day. In- 
dividual energy and national character have from 
age to age less weight in the political balance ; and 
victory is less subject to the fortunes of Csesarthan 
to the rules of arithmetic. An insular situation 
prevents that incorporation of territory upon which 
all empire proceeds ; and without a very power- 
ful moral cause operating as a check upon physi- 
cal laws, all islands must in the end follow the fate 
of the neighbouring continent, — the dreams of mili- 
tary domination which the commonwealth's men 
cherished for this country, and the plans which they 
laid for its succeeding to the inheritance and em- 
pire of Rome, could no longer be realized ; nor 
does the remark of Harrington continue to hold 
good, that " the situation of these countries being 
islands (as appears by Venice, how advantageous 
such a one is to the like government) seems to have 
been designed by God for a commonwealth. And 
yet Venice, through the straitness of the place and 
defect of proper arms, can be no more than a com- 
monwealth for preservation ; whereas this, reduced 
to the like government, is a commonwealth for in- 
crease, and upon the mightiest foundation that any 
has been laid from the beginning of the world to 
this day. 



10* 



118 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

Illam arcta capiens Neptunus compede stringit : 
Hanc autem glaucis captus complectitur ulnie. 

The sea gives law to the growth of Venice, but the 
growth of Oceana gives law to the sea." But the 
state of the continent is completely altered since 
the time of Harrington, when the states of Christen- 
dom neither knew their own strength, nor how to 
employ that portion of it which they put forth to 
the utmost advantage. Now, if all the disposable 
forces of Britain were directed against any one of 
the greater nations of Europe, that nation might as- 
sert, as the Greeks did of the Trojans, that if the 
mercenaries were excluded, and the rest of the ar- 
my made prisoners, every tenth man would not be 
possessed of a captive. While the population of the 
United States is doubling itself in less than twen- 
ty-five years, and that of Russia perhaps, in about 
half a century ; England, which will no longer ad- 
mit of such a corresponding increase, must seek to 
make its own resources available, by the superior 
skill with which it can wield them. 

There is nothing so conducive to excellence as 
the necessity of excelling ; and* as it must become 
more and more obvious to the country at large, 
that the safety as well as the glory of England, 
must depend on her outstripping the rest of the 
world in the career of improvement, it will be no 
hazardous prophecy to foretell, that the advance- 
ment of Britain in the arts, during the next fifty 



IN KNOWLEDGE AJfD RELIGION. 119 

years, will far surpass any that has ever yet been 
witnessed. 

It would be difficult to point out any branch of 
art which does not tend to the prosperity of our 
country ; those, which in appearance are most re- 
mote in their influence, however indirectly, yet ef- 
fectually contribute to the perfection of its manu- 
factures. The pursuits of immediate utility, and of 
refined pleasure, however far separated from each 
other, alike combine in exalting the national wel- 
fare. It is not necessary, in recommending the fine 
arts to public patronage, to point out how far they 
improve and recommend to other nations the pro- 
ductions of manufactures, since they have higher 
and more direct claims upon the national encourage- 
ment. Still their advancement, and above all, their 
diffusion, become of high importance in a country, 
which aims like Britain, to be, and ever to continue, 
the centre and heart of trade and manufactures. A 
general association might have much in its power in 
affording facilities for the improvement of the fine 
arts, in extending a taste for them, and in increasing 
the patronage which they receive. It must be 
owned, however, that it is not the want of a certain 
degree of encouragement which causes the fine arts 
to languish in this country, but the want of a pub- 
lic demand, and a nobler employment for them ; 
the only effectual remedy would be to find a sub- 
stitute for the idolatry of paganism and popery : 
and the best patrons of living artists would be a se- 



120 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

cond Omar and Amrou, who should commit to the 
flames the works of the old masters. 

It is to be regretted that so many British works, 
which vie with the Roman in magnitude, and sur- 
pass them in utility, should fall so far short of them 
in magnificence and ostentation. Without any disr 
respect to Roman greatness, the canals of England 
as works of public utility, may well be compared 
with the Roman ways, yet these water roads, which 
are branched throughout every part of England, do 
not strike the mind like the roads of the Romans, 
the emblems of their own conquests, which sur- 
mount those obstacles from which the moderns turn 
aside, and stretch forward in one unbending straight 
line towards their destined end. The Mole which 
protects the navy of Britain against the tides, rivals 
in the massiveness of its structure, and surpasses in 
the difficulty of its erection, the Pyramids of the 
Pharaohs ; but, while itsgreatness is concealed by the 
waves, whose force it breaks, it will never vie in the 
imagination with those imperishable piles, which are 
outlined against the cloudless sky of Egypt. It is, 
therefore, to be wished, that a general association 
should encourage the erection of fabrics, corres- 
ponding to the greatness of the nation which reared 
them, and that there should be some monuments, 
towering above the flux and waste of ages, which 
might be to the eye what the epochs of the chro- 
nologists are to the mind, the mementos of past 
events, beacons eminent and radiant above the flood 
of time. 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 121 

Pre-eminent among the other arts, and far sur- 
passing them all, agriculture ought to occupy the 
especial attention of a general society, since by its 
rise every thing else is raised, and by its improve- 
ment the whole of life becomes progressive. Ag- 
riculture undoubtedly has received greater additions 
during the last thirty years, than during any prece- 
ding century of its improvement, — and yet means 
much more efficacious than any hitherto used, might 
be adopted for its speedier advancement. The im- 
provement it has already received is owing to the 
surveys of its different processes, in different dis- 
tricts, and to a comparison and choice of their 
separate advantages being made, — but these pro- 
cesses were mostly empirical, instituted upon no 
enlarged or scientific views, and in their origin, 
mere blind and groping tentative s, after the most 
productive method of management. 

In farming there has been no regular or arranged 
plan of instruction ; one generation of agricultu- 
rists has received the traditions of the preceding 
one, and added its own occasional observations ; 
while science has only come lately and feebly to 
their assistance ; and a study, where, from the 
number of non-essential circumstances entering in- 
to its various processes, selection is most requisite, 
has been received and handed down in the gross, 
and with small rejection of what was trivial and un- 
important. The only remedy for this, and the best 
instrument for farther advancement, would be a 
model and central institution, combined with a 



122 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

model farm, where those who intend to pursue ag- 
riculture as a profession, might receive the best edu- 
cation which the present state of the art, and the 
present state of the sciences, which are applicable 
to it, would admit ; and where they might see the 
crude suggestions which are thrown out for its far- 
ther proficience, brought to the test of actual ex- 
periment, and might themselves be instructed in a 
better method of experimenting, and a more sys- 
tematic plan of inquiry. If country gentlemen 
would encourage such institutions by small annual 
contributions, instead of attempting to become prac- 
tical farmers themselves, under pretence of en- 
couraging agriculture, in which pursuit they can on- 
ly serve as beacons, being destitute of all other 
classes of that first requisite of the agricultural 
character, a rigorous parsimony, they would contri- 
bute at the same time, in the surest manner, to the 
increase of their personal fortunes, and to the aug- 
mentation of the prosperity of their country. The 
art of ameliorating the soil would every where 
leave traces of its progress throughout our land, as 
the deities of eastern fable manifested their presence 
by sudden flowers, and a fresher verdure springing 
up beneath their feet. 

Horticulture, which may be considered as a more 
concentrated agriculture, acting in a narrower 
space, with more refined and subtle means, would 
admit of a similar improvement, and that delightful 
art would still more vaiy and multiply its magic, 
realizing in its small enclosures the fables of the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 123 

fortunate islands and the golden age, where spring 
and autumn held a united empire, and fruit was ri- 
pening at every season of the year. 

IMPROVEMENT OF LIFE. 

XII. As the sciences administer to the arts, so 
ought the arts to be helpful and aiding to the mani- 
fold purposes of life ; and the improvement of its com- 
forts and accommodations would naturally follow 
the perfecting of the arts, since these bear the same 
relation to household uses and conveniences, which 
the sciences bear to them. The diffusing of the 
arts and making them popular, the spreading every 
improvement, through every gradation of society, 
would be the crowning undertaking of an associa- 
tion, which had for its object the' amelioration of 
mankind, and which, in raising the lowest, would 
raise along with it every other rank in the social 
scale. Society has never yet been thoroughly 
stirred by any renovating spring, and the genial in- 
fluences that have come over it have penetrated 
slowly and languidly into the soil, — however wide 
the illumination might have been, it bore no greater 
proportion to the mass that remained unenlightened, 
than the surface of the ocean, which is stirred by 
the breeze, and radiant with the sunshine, does to 
the depth of waters which remain dark and un- 
moved beneath it. The discoveries which are the 
property of the higher class in one age, descend 
indeed to the lower, but slowly and imperfectly ; 
and there is ample opportunity and scope for ac- 



124 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

celerating the general diffusion of knowledge and 
inventions among all classes of the community. 
Even in the most civilized countries the mass of 
the nation have been suffered to remain compara- 
tively barbarians ; and it will be the dawn of a new 
and happier era, when the condition of the multi- 
tude is considered with that interest which is due 
to those, the sum of whose joys and sorrows are to 
all that is felt by the rest of the community, what 
the ocean is to the drops of rain that fall into it. It 
is thus too, that knowledge, by being made common, 
is made permanent ; the advancement of a whole 
nation is secured against decay, and the enlightened 
customs and practices of the people are the best 
and most stable depositaries of knowledge. 

GENERAL SOCIETY. 

XIIL But a task has already been assigned 
larger, it may be thought, than any society is likely 
to accomplish : a task sufficient to have broken the 
rest of the slumbrous deities of Lucretius. 

"Nam (proh sancta Deum tranquilla pectora pace 
Quae placidum degunt sevum, vitamque serenam !) 
Q,uis regere immensi surnmam, quis habere profundi 
Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas, 
Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore praesto 1" 

But notwithstanding the unmanageable appear- 
ance of the work proposed, when viewed as a 
whole, the seeming difficulty vanishes when each 
part is considered as distinct from the rest, and like 
the untied bundle of rods, the mastery over each 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 125 

would speedily be gained. A voluntary society, 
unconstrained in all its movements, having no boun- 
dary fixed to its growth, could, in the course of its 
enlargement, attain to ends, however immense and 
distant, and having no impediment to the number 
of its subdivisions, could descend and overtake ob- 
jects however numerous and minute. The freedom 
of voluntary combination would allow it to choose 
the point from which it might proceed ; and where- 
ever it began is immaterial, provided that from its 
expansiveness and native energy, it spread over the 
whole field of action, leaving no situation unoccu- 
pied, as it rose in its accumulated strength, and 
multiplied its confluent resources. As it advanced 
in power and numbers, its centre of attraction and 
sphere of activity would enlarge along with it, and 
in the end would encircle every element of success, 
and combine every resource of varied assistance. 
Two or three individuals might commence with the 
purpose of lending their aid to any one portion of 
science, and with the intention of gradually admit- 
ting others to join them, who were inclined to pur- 
sue a similar path of benevolent exertion ; their ob- 
jects of pursuit might increase in exact proportion 
with the increase of their numbers, and each de- 
partment of knowledge in ^succession might be 
taken possession of, as one party after another ad- 
vanced to cover the ground, and to enter upon the 
same line of operation. 

Every object may be attained by a society which, 
in its original constitution, provides for an unlimited 
11 



126 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

augmentation of numbers, and has the power of 
casting these into every variety of form and sub- 
division, and is thus capable, from its greatness as a 
whole, of overpowering every obstacle ; and from 
its minute divisibility of out-numbering by its sepa- 
rable parts all the objects which have claims upon 
its attention. 

In this plan, the wide field of knowledge would 
be divided into manageable portions, each indivi- 
dual would have allotted to him his own favourite 
walk of science, and would proceed to discovery 
along a well-known and often frequented path : 
while the attention of some were occupied by add- 
ing to the comfort of the peasantry, by throwing 
out hints on cottage architecture, and studying the 
economy of food and fuel, others might point out 
better methods of parochial education, or add to 
the usefulness or extension of village libraries ; 
while some gave their support to the diffusion of 
schools of arts, in which mechanics might be taught 
the principles of their own empirical practice, 
others might point out the application of science to 
agriculture, and induce the co-operation of landed 
proprietors and farmers in the appointment of a 
model institution and a model farm ; while some 
drew a larger proportion of private wealth to the 
encouragement of the fine arts, and to the promo- 
tion of science, others by their influence, or their 
representations, might extend the public patronage 
to those writings and monuments, which would add 
new lustre to their country ; and all would combine 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 127 

by a simultaneous effort, to recover what was lost, 
to complete what was defective, to supply what 
was wanting, to remove every impediment, to ap- 
propriate every assistance, and to impel society, by 
every possible means, along a rapid course of con- 
tinual improvement. 

ITS INFLUENCE OVER GOVERNMENT. 

XIV. Nor would such a society be confined to 
its own private resources ; by the extent of its ope- 
rations it would acquire the power of occupying the 
public mind, and through it, of obtaining the assist- 
ance, and in some degree the pecuniary aid of go- 
vernment. Few rulers have had the wisdom of 
patronising, in an efficient manner, literature, or of 
supporting men of genius, and assisting them in the 
pursuit of their studies ; few have perceived the 
economy of gaining over to their side the mind of 
the age, as the cheapest, and the easiest, as well as 
the noblest road to power. Yet however blind they 
may be to merit, or unconscious of the aid which the 
friendship of superior talents can confer, they are 
not inaccessible to applications for favour, nor insen- 
sible of the pleasure of bestowing money, without 
any personal sacrifice, nor unambitious of the 
honours of patronage. In the contests between 
two factions for the occupation of the first places of 
the state, the influence of literature may be over- 
looked, and its claims unheeded, yet neither of them 
would be willing to give up all pretensions to the 
knowledge or to the patronage of literature. Both 



128 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

parties might easily be brought to vie with each 
other in munificence to men of letters, and in liberal 
grants to science from the public purse, when they 
found that their own weight in public opinion de- 
pended considerably on favouring or neglecting the 
genius of the country. A sum infinitely small when 
compared with the general expenditure, might far 
outstrip whatever ancient or modern Mecaenases 
have done in their favour and love of letters ; and 
government itself would be strengthened in the 
opinion of the public, by conciliating towards it the 
supporting voice of men of talents, who are not 
ungrateful, but rather somewhat venal and abundant 
in their praises. It is indeed a wonderful oversight 
in princes, amidst their feverish thirst for notoriety 
and fame, that they seek it not where it is most easily 
and abundantly to be found, in the applauses of 
pensioned men of genius, which though seen through 
by the present age, will yet, to a certain degree, 
pass current with posterity, and obtain for them an 
apotheosis in the recollections of distant times, while 
the meanness of their real characters, and even 
their crimes, are forgotten. Posterity joins in aid- 
ing this delusion upon itself; while benefited by the 
munificence, and not suffering from the miseries 
which were the portion of a former age, they look 
upon the betrayers and tyrants of their country as 
the benefactors of their species, who have injured 
indeed one generation, but have multiplied the en- 
joyments of all succeeding ones ; and who, now 
that they are divested of mortality, seem alike the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 129 

presiding spirits of science and of song. It is thus 
that the historian and the philosopher is contented 
to forget crimes by which he is not injured, and to 
be grateful for pleasures which he may hourly taste ; 
while reading the verses of Virgil and of Horace, 
or the splendid fictions of the east, he turns aside 
his view from the parricide, and the liberticide, and 
sees only the emperor, who dazzles less with his 
jewels than with the gems of genius with which he 
has surrounded himself, and forgets the real history 
of Octavius and Chosroes, for the imaginary glories 
of Augustus and Noushirwan. 

ITS INFLUENCE OVER EUROPE. 

XV. A new source of influence would arise in 
the general direction which the mind of Europe 
would receive by any one country taking the lead 
in patronising knowledge, and inducing its govern- 
ment to confer honours and emoluments on the pur- 
suit of science. This enlarged patronage, and 
these honours and emoluments, from the very nature 
and end of them, would not be confined to the sub- 
jects of one country, but would be diffused upon all 
who contributed by their genius, and their discove- 
ries, to benefit human nature ; and it is not to be 
supposed that other governments would remain pas- 
sive and indifferent spectators of rewards conferred 
by foreigners upon their own subjects, for benefits 
to mankind at large, but would be stirred up to imi- 
tate the same example, and be ambitious likewise of 
the reputation of being favourers of knowledge. 
11* 



130 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



From this source of useful emulation, talents and 
science would acquire a new rank, and new influ- 
ence on European Society ; and the encouragement 
of letters and inventions would be considered one 
of the most imperative duties of policy, an essential 
part of the kingly character, and the chief spring of 
national greatness. If a small portion of what has 
been expended in wars, or even in one campaign, 
by any one state in Christendom, had been set 
apart as a literary fund, and merely the interest of 
it devoted to the attainment of scientific objects, 
and to the incitement and support of learning, the 
sciences would have worn a very different face in 
that country ; and its superiority in power, from its 
superiority in knuw ledge, wuuld have greatly ex- 
ceeded in value any acquisition of territory obtain- 
ed by arms. It is strange, amid the profusion and 
idle waste of national resources by which so many 
countries are characterised, that so few drops of the 
scattered showers of plenty have lighted upon sci- 
ence. Had half the energies which have been 
wasted in mutual destruction, and in spreading wide 
the desolations of war, been put forth in extorting 
her secret treasures from nature, and subduing the 
material world to the service and behest of man, 
Europe by this time would have resembled a gar- 
den, and all the rest of the world would have 
becormr European. Had only one country devoted 
itself to the pursuit of knowledge, and sought the 
aggrandisement of peace in preference to that of 
the sword, that country would have become the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 131 

Athens of modern times ; and, compared to it, the 
other nations of Europe would have appeared but 
as hordes of barbarians. 

ADVANTAGES OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. 

XVI. It is not only for the temporal advantages 
which science brings in her train that her advance- 
ment is desirable, but because in all time to come, 
the spread of religion is intimately connected with 
that of science. The obstacles to the universal diffu- 
sion of religion would be removed along with the 
barbarism, and the ignorance, the superstition, and 
the brutal violence, which lay waste the finest por- 
tions of the earth ; and religion has become inse- 
parably linked with science as the medium by which 
she will pervade all countries, and attain to the re- 
motest recesses of the globe ; every new truth dis- 
covered is a step gained for christianizing the 
world ; and every art, and every accommodation 
that ministers to convenience in this life, may be 
turned into an instrument for farthering the inter- 
ests of another. The superiority of Europe, like 
the superiority of ancient Greece, kept for a time 
within narrow limits by the jealousies and the divi- 
sions of its states, will, in no distant period, burst 
its boundaries, and Europe, like Greece under 
Alexander, will overrun the regions of the barbari- 
ans, bearing in the train of its conquests the disco- 
veries of true science, and the revelations of true 
religion. The sword that hangs over the eastern 
nations is suspended by a single thread ; and the 



132 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

treasures and the crowns of half a world would 
scarcely cost their conqueror a victory. 

The case is now the same with respect to the 
European sciences, as it formerly was with fire- 
arms, all nations must either adopt them or be con- 
quered by them, and the adopting of the science of 
Europe would operate a still greater revolution than 
the being conquered by its arms ; and a change 
would be effected not only in the government and 
civil institutions of the east, but in their religion 
and in all their modes of thought and life. But in- 
dependently of the changes which are taking place, 
by power being so amassed and concentrated, that 
the forces of a small province are sufficient for the 
conquest of a half civilized empire ; the means of 
voluntary persuasion are so augmented, that private 
individuals of no extraordinary capacity may com- 
mence the task of legislators, and like the benefac- 
tors of ancient Greece, may become the founders 
of new cities, and the authors of new political and 
religious institutions. The miracles which are im- 
puted to false prophets, who established the worship 
of strange gods, must yield to the wonders which 
those moderately acquainted with science could 
operate ; and missionaries have at their command 
whatever can rivet the attention, and inform the 
mind, when once the attention is secured. 

All tribes, with a very few exceptions have made 
the first step to civilization, in the feeling of their 
own inferiority ; and the change might be rapid, to 
a high state of improvement, if they were guided 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 133 

by men at once acquainted with the arts of Europe, 
and the directest and simplest method of teaching 
them to others. Any government that was wise 
enough steadily to pursue its own interest, upon a 
great scale, might extend far and wide, a dominion 
more lasting and more useful than can be acquired 
by force ; by imparting the arts of life, it might 
acquire the veneration which antiquity offered to 
the deified inventors of the arts, and be looked up 
to as their mother country, their sacred land, by 
nations remote in lineage, and dissevered by inter- 
vening continents. This feeling of filial veneration, 
unlike what the sword can give or take away, would 
remain the same among the vicissitudes of earthly 
things, and being incorporated with the early history 
of states, would continue for ever interwoven 
among the national remembrances. The subjects 
of such a nation would become a sacred tribe 
among mankind, the origin and the depository of 
those seeds of knowledge and religion, which were 
bearing so fair a crop throughout the earth, where- 
ever were the dwellings of men. And when the 
sources of all the wealth and greatness, which had 
rested upon passing events, had vanished away, an 
empire would still remain, though of less material 
character ; and its inhabitants would resemble that 
royal race of the east, who, when they ceased to 
be emperors, were still considered as the pontiffs 
and vicegerents of heaven. 



134 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



ADVANTAGES OF RELIGION TO SCIENCE. 

XVII. But if religion owes much, and expects 
more from science, science in time will owe much 
to religion ; the pursuits of knowledge are calm and 
abstracted ; the genuine love of it is but the portion 
of few, and these not among the wealthiest nor the 
most powerful of the species. Those rewards it 
has obtained have been chiefly extorted from vanity, 
a passion at once rapacious and covetous, that 
would receive much and give little ; and with a few 
splendid exceptions of philosophic or ambitious 
chiefs, the sums distributed for its support have been 
bestowed with the penuriousness of almsgiving, 
rather than with the munificence of patronage. 
Religion alone is ever likely to have sufficient power 
over the selfishness of any great number of men. 
to afford a proportionate reward for exertions which 
are profitable to individuals, only in as far as they 
benefit the community ; and it is from the enthusiasm 
and the self-devotion which religion is able to in- 
spire, that we must look for any voluntary fund of 
large amount, when great and distant objects are 
to be attained at an expense commensurate with 
their greatness. From the prevalence of religion, 
the heroic feeling of seeking the common good be- 
fore any private advantage will become diffused 
and prevalent, and Christianity may be expected to 
do as much, and more than the ancient superstitions 
did, when they made the citizen of antiquity prefer 
the ornament of public temples to the decoration 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 135 

of his own private dwelling, the aggrandizement of 
his country to the accumulation of a fortune for his 
family ; and taught him to consider the welfare of 
his country as the very fountainhead of his own 
prosperity. It is thus that in their past history and 
future prospects the destinies of religion and science 
are united ; and whatever promotes the one must 
have a favourable influence on the other; while 
science subjects the material world to man, and 
placing all sublunary things beneath his feet, re- 
stores him to the dominion which was lost by the 
fall of his first progenitor, religion will subject him 
to that law, the swerving from which was a greater 
loss than the other, and both united will restore the 
original design and harmony of creation, by which 
nature was subjected toman, and man to his Creator. 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 



PART THIRD. 

THE ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION AT HOME. 



DIFFERENCE IN THE CONDITION OF JEWS 
AND CHRISTIANS. 

I. There are two empires in the world : that of 
force and that of truth : and as their nature, so their 
means are different. But brute force is of small 
avail, unless moral suasion accompanies it ; and 
most dominations that have existed, have been 
mixed of both ; employing force to gain, and opin- 
ion to retain the empire they had acquired. On the 
other hand, what has been gained by the persuasion 
of truth, has been sought to be retained by force ; 
and the power over the mind which the early Chris- 
tians obtained by their own sufferings in the cause 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY* 137 

of truth, the Christians, falsely so called, sought to 
retain by the sufferings of others, who dissented for 
conscience sake. From the difference, however, of 
these two influences over the mind, an essential 
difference is pointed out in the mode of their ope- 
rations, and in the situation of those external cir- 
cumstances which afford facilities or hindrances to 
either. To take the case of the Jews : When a 
single nation was selected to become the priests of 
that pure worship which had been neglected or for- 
gotten by the rest of mankind, a number of nation- 
al rites were established, as the symbols and initia- 
tion of that priesthood, which had at once the 
double office of separating them from the nations 
and being the emblems of a future dispensation. 
This priesthood, or this nation, for here they are 
synonymous, had to uphold their laws by the sword 
against external or internal violence ; and the Jews 
were congregated into one territory, and embodied 
into a peculiar people, being as yet only the wit- 
nesses of a forgotten truth, or at best, but the 
prophets of a future, and not the apostles of the 
present revelation. But when the times of the 
Gentiles were come, and truth, by its own peculiar 
weapons, was to subdue the world, that national 
force which was requisite for the maintenance of 
national rites was discarded, and the sceptre de- 
parted from Judah, when the King whose sceptre 
was truth, and whose dominion was in the mind, 
came to reign over the family of man. As a 
transition to this new dominion, the Jews were, by 
12 



138 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

their captivity in the east, and their emigration 
through the west, gradually removed from their 
country, and scattered among the nations of the 
world. They were thus unfitted to support a na- 
tional system of rites, and fitted to spread a univer- 
sal system of opinion. They were missionaries 
without moving from their birth-place ; and, before 
the coming of the Messiah, occupied the stations 
among the gentiles whence they could most easily 
and efficaciously proclaim his advent, and demand 
obedience to his universal authority. 

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF 
CHRISTIANS. 

II. What the situation of the Jews was then, 
upon a larger scale and with greater resources is 
that of the Christians now. In every nation there 
are men who fear God and follow righteousness ; 
though there is no nation who make the law of God 
their law, and who might claim with Israel to be 
God's peculiar people. It is thus that true Chris- 
tians are witnesses for the truth in the world at 
large, as the Jews were among the Gentiles ; their 
abode becomes a station for proclaiming the truth ; 
they are constituted missionaries by the constitution 
of society around them, and they have not the hea- 
then to seek in distant countries, they have them in 
their streets, and at their doors. Every Christian 
is surrounded with fields of usefulness already 
white for the harvest; the work is prepared for 
him, and he is prepared for the work ; since, with 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 139 

the Bible in his hand, and its truth written in his 
heart, he speaks the language of those about him, 
enters involuntarily into their turn of thought, and 
possesses the avenues to their conviction, from the 
habit of appealing to their reason, or to their pas- 
sions, to carry his own purposes into effect. With- 
out any preconcerted effort he is acting on those 
around him ; a solitary, and often a silent witness, 
his life, regulated by other rules, and newly infused 
hopes, creates a change even by the opposition it 
excites, or by the disapprobation it incurs. Some 
objections are relinquished as untenable, and a near- 
er approximation of opinions, though it be for pur- 
poses of hostility, becomes necessary for coming 
into close contact with the system condemned, or 
to enable the objector to institute a comparison in 
favour of himself. The standard of duty is raised 
alike by imitation or opposition, and the minds of 
men are preserved from the willing oblivion they 
naturally fall into, of an invisible existence. The 
life of a Christian, however hidden, like the secret 
wells of the desert, is ever discoverable from the 
verdure which it nourished by its presence. Silent 
thoughts, which have had no other outlet but pray- 
er, have yet a restraining power when conscience 
interprets that silence ; and the precipitous descent 
to evil is rendered less headlong by the intervention 
of a few scattered monitors. A Christian has a 
sphere of influence before he begins to act, from 
the power which a predominating principle has of 
drawing other minds within the circle of its action ; 



140 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

and the changes and vicissitudes of mortality neces- 
sarily call that principle into activity and exhibit it 
in a visible form. But, though impelled by their 
peculiar position to benefit others, there is often 
among men of devoted piety the want of a system- 
atic plan of benevolence, and a postponement of 
objects near at hand for those to which distance 
gives an imaginary value. To the evils we contin- 
ually see we become resigned, as if they formed an 
inseparable part of the ordinary course of nature : 
and scenes of diversified and foreign misery are the 
first to arouse the attention, and, by the impression 
they make on the imagination, and the incitement 
they give to arduous enterprise, have had the largest 
share in forming the habit of benevolent exertion. 
This state of mind, though not unnatural, and the 
origin of most of the plans of usefulness now in 
operation, is prolonged unnecessarily after the habit 
which it gave rise to is fixed, and serves to throw 
into the shade that narrow field of exertion which 
is at the command of each individual. Men are apt 
to forget, while they gaze at remoteness, that every 
impulse is greatest at its centre, but is wasted away 
as it is diffused, and when widely spread, is finally 
lost in the conflicting movements which it is sure to 
encounter. Other causes which prevent Christians 
from labour and self-denial, are the easy terms on 
which they may be at peace with all around them. 
If they cease to do good, they immediately cease 
to be opposed; the middle state of neutrality is 
freely allowed to them ; and they may always re- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 141 

tain their principles with applause, provided they 
never seek to put any of them into practice. Be- 
sides, the interests of truth are supposed to be dele- 
gated to a particular class, whose peculiar office it 
is to make known the gospel, and whose appoint- 
ment dismisses the great body of Christians to the 
enjoyment of an ease and inactivity denied to the 
first professors of the faith ; to whom the earth of- 
fered no resting-place, and who were witnesses un- 
to the death, of the divine authority of those doc- 
trines which made them differ from other men. It 
is not to be expected that the modern disciples of 
Christianity should have the same zeal as those who 
were thrust out to their work by persecution, and 
who had resigned whatever was dear to man for 
the sake of conscience, and had burst the last 
shackles which bound them to the world. The na- 
tural acquiescence in things present and sensible 
has too strong a hold in ordinary circumstances to 
permit the religious principle its full vigour ; still we 
may look forward to the time when zeal shall in- 
crease with knowledge, and a greater influence for 
good shall be spread by individuals through their 
own immediate neighbourhood. And though a 
prophet is not without honour except among his 
own kindred, and in his own country, and a large 
enterprise often demands a more distant field, yet, 
in the quiet walk of every-day usefulness, and in 
that stable success which is of slow and silent 
growth, the retired circuit of each individual's pri- 
vate influence affords the surest opening and pro- 
12* 



142 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

mise of a favourable result. Here every one is at 
his post ; the work is already begun, and the work- 
man is fitted for his task. There is neither waste of 
time nor of exertion ; but without their intention, 
or their knowledge, a host of teachers are scattered 
far and wide over the world, each in the situation 
he is appointed to occupy ; and furnished, without 
his seeking them, with the qualifications which fit 
him for his work. But though the scattered condi- 
tion of Christians has its advantages, in placing 
each man upon his field of labour, and furnishing 
him, by his previous life, with many of the habits and 
acquirements best adapted to make that labour suc- 
cessful ; yet they lose as a body what they gain as 
individuals, by being less firmly united together, 
than if collected into one solid phalanx, all trained 
by a uniform discipline, and executing the same 
movements, in obedience to the same word of com- 
mand. Being far separated and dispersed, often 
unable to recognise each other, ignorant of their 
numbers, unconscious of their strength, and sensible 
only of the presence and of the multitude of their 
enemies, they are deterred from attempts which 
they might successfully execute if they had the 
means at once of knowing each other, and of mak- 
ing known their common designs. A regular and 
ascertained method of mutual communication would 
completely remedy the inconveniences of their 
scattered situation : for it is the union of opinions, 
and not of persons, that truth requires to assert her 
moral dominion. Whatever then, tends to make 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 143 

christians coalesce in their endeavours to attain the 
same ends, and whatever circulates a common 
mind throughout the scattered body, tends also to 
fill up the full measure of their just influence in its 
twofold method of operation ; the influence of the 
individual on the neighbourhood around him, and 
the influence of the body at large upon the public 
mind. 

UTILITY OF ASSOCIATION. 

III. The first method by which these advantages 
may be secured is voluntary association. The act 
of uniting for any object whatever, raises individuals 
from their condition of helpless inactivity, and dis- 
plays to them, instead of their lonely and isolated 
condition, the wide extended array of their friends ; 
and then, no longer held in by the pressure of a 
thwarting and out-numbering force, they have all 
the spirits which advancing to the attack confers, 
and all the confidence which arises from the new 
discovery of their allied numbers. The invigorat- 
ing strength which such an association gives, secures 
the doubtful and inspirits the wavering, gives a re- 
newal of life to the languid body, opens out a 
prospect amid intervening obstacles, and levels what 
was formerly deemed insurmountable. The force 
of moral union rapidly augments ; and what seemed 
impregnable when assailed by many repetitions of 
individual effort, gives way before the combined 
assault of numbers, who are enabled continually to 
recruit their strength, and to pour out fresh acces- 



144 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

sions of force into the field. Association also in- 
creases the chance of success, and [diminishes the 
liability to reverses. A general union is too widely 
spread to be interrupted by any checks it may re- 
ceive upon particular points ; what is weak in one 
part can be strengthened from the resources of the 
rest ; and reiterated failures are provided against, 
or immediately obliterated, by attempts sufficiently 
numerous to exhaust misfortune. Besides, volun- 
tary union, not bound to any prescriptive form, or 
certain mode of operation, can change and adapt 
itself to varying events ; or, when hemmed in by 
hindrances, can insinuate itself through the nar- 
rowest inlets. Eluding the sight like the most sub- 
tile and irresistible powers of nature, it can spread 
unseen its fine net-work through the world, and in- 
volve in its meshes whatever offers resistance, or 
obstructs its progress. But such a society is not 
only an instrument of power ; it subserves also a 
variety of secondary purposes ; it is a bond of mu- 
tual knowledge, as well as of mutual co-operation ; 
it is at once a register of those who are engaged in 
the same enterprise, and an exercise by which they 
are trained to act in concert; and it lifts up a 
standard round which all can rally who are favour- 
able to the common cause. It allows those who 
are enrolled in it, all the support of acting in a well- 
compacted body, and reserves for them the almost 
opposite advantages of a very extended field of 
action ; and unites a strict combination of move- 
ment with a free and voluntary service ; and joins 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 145 

the unity and simultaneousness of effort with every 
diversity of mode and direction of attack. Its in- 
direct consequences are still greater than its direct 
results ; even in the failure of every attempt, the 
members of such a union receive a greater benefit 
than that which they proposed to confer ; if they 
are successful, their success redounds in a still higher 
degree upon themselves ; and if the receivers of 
the gospel have been blessed, those who sent it have 
experienced that it is still more blessed to give than 
to receive ; and before the distant regions of the 
earth are likely to be turned to the knowledge of 
the truth, England herself will be evangelized, in 
the act of evangelizing other nations. 

BEST FORM OF SOCIETIES. 

IV. Associations as yet have by no means re- 
ceived their best form, though the inconveniences 
attending an imperfect arrangement, and the in- 
creasing pressure of business, have gradually made 
them approximate to it. The first problem with all 
societies, has been to secure a certain portion of 
the public money ; which was only to be done by 
including in the list of names upon the committee, 
those who were favourites of the religious public, 
and who, from their popularity, might be consider- 
ed as securities for the proper employment of what- 
ever was contributed ; and as these members were 
chosen, not for their acquaintance with the subject, 
nor the interest which they took in it, nor for the 
leisure and opportunity they had of minutely in- 



146 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

quiring into its concerns, nor for any purpose en- 
tertained by them of undertaking the labour of its 
management, they soon would become irregular in 
their attendance, and the real direction of the so- 
ciety would be vested in a few, and not in that list 
of names which were held forth to the public. But 
the irregular attendance of members of a commit- 
tee not only conceals those who have the real man- 
agement, but impedes and perplexes the business, 
by changing directors into learners, who, instead of 
giving instructions what ought to be done at the 
present meeting, become confused inquirers of 
what had taken place at the last. Besides, where 
business has to be transacted by talking, the work 
executed is the exact inverse of the number of as- 
siitants ; each one has his peculiar turn of thought, 
and his own mode of action ; all views may be 
right, since there are many ways of reaching the 
same end ; but all are not compatible ; and the ap^ 
propriated time expires in a variety of opinions ; 
the members must disperse, and the matter is hud- 
dled up by some crude compromise, which is sup- 
posed to represent the unanimous sense of the 
meeting. The real and laborious business of every 
society should be devolved upon a salaried agent, 
and the control of that business should be vested 
in sub-committees, with the obligation of reporting 
their proceedings to the parent committee for ap- 
proval, but not for discussion. Two or three mem- 
bers will go over thrice as much ground as a com- 
mittee of twenty, in the same given time, and much 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 14? 

more thoroughly. Not having numbers lo shield 
them, they will find it incumbent upon them to make 
themselves acquainted with the subjects on which 
they are about r to determine ; and a measure of 
responsibility will attach itself to them which can- 
not adhere to a larger committee, who out of the 
weariness of much speaking, often submit to some 
middle opinion, which not one of them sincerely 
judges to be the best. A great improvement might 
consist in sub-committees giving the reasons of their 
proceedings shortly in writing ; by this means, the 
whole committee, though not masters of the details, 
might yet judge whether these reasons were valid : 
and by a simple assent or dissent, might ratify or 
annul them. Thus the society would obtain a fixed 
and written plan and outline of all its proceedings ; 
and the improvements that were subsequently made 
would not be suggestions thrown out in the heat of 
conversation, but the result of genuine experience 
and sober deliberation. In this way the committee 
would be lightened of its labours ; the calls upon 
its attention would be less frequent, and therefore 
easily attended to ; no time would be lost in idle 
discussion ; the whole proceedings and mechanism 
of the society could be laid before every member 
in writing; and their operations would proceed 
without change, except a decidedly ascertained 
change for the better. 



148 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 



DIVISION INTO DISTRICTS. 

V. Corresponding to the division of societies in- 
to sub-committees, is the division into districts of 
the country over which the society is to operate. 
By the first measure, the active part of the society 
is brought into the highest state of efficiency, and by 
the second, those who are to be acted upon, are 
brought into the most manageable condition. 
Through towns, every impulse that acts upon man- 
kind is circulated with comparative ease and rapi- 
dity ; these are the natural centres of all changes 
and improvements ; but the movements become 
more languid and feeble as they spread to a dis- 
tance, throughout remote and thinly peopled dis- 
tricts, and vestiges of a former state of society long 
continue to linger in these recesses, unaffected by 
the changes which have taken place in a denser 
population. It is thus that Christianity, and every 
new system of opinions, was not at first equally 
diffused over the countries which it so rapidly over- 
ran; it followed the main stream of civilizatoni, 
and fixed its abode in cities, while the villages were 
long left to their ancient errors. The remoter parts 
of a country therefore require a peculiar exertion 
from any agency that would spread a new influence 
over them, and demand an adaptation in the me- 
chanism of any society that would penetrate imme- 
diately into the depths of their seclusion ; towns, 
at the same time, while they readily receive and 
conceal any new movement, also present an obsta- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 149 

cle, arising from an opposite cause, but attended 
with a similar effect ; by the density and impervi- 
ousness of their masses, they suddenly arrest that 
movement which is more slowly diffused, and at 
length ceases to circulate, through the scattered 
and interrupted population of the country. The 
remedy in both cases is to divide, and overcome. 
By an agency adapted to each district, the remotest 
and most desert tracts may be brought within the 
sphere of a society's influence, and the most impe- 
netrable portions of a crowded city may be per- 
vaded and made permeable. The principle of 
locality, which has been applied so successfully by 
Dr. Chalmers to the arrangement of parishes and 
towns, is transferable with an equal prospect of suc- 
cess, to the arrangements of general societies, and 
is, in their case, still more necessary, as their field 
of operations is more extended and more unman- 
ageable ; and the same principle, though no longer 
applied to space and numbers, would still be follow- 
ed with the same happy results, in the allocation and 
division of business among subdivisions of com- 
mittees. In order to cover the country with effect, 
and to bring it completely within the reach of the 
influence intended, it would be necessary to appoint 
agents and correspondents for each county, who 
would have subordinate agents attached to each 
district, with ramifications of their influence extend- 
ing to every parish. It is a completeness of agency 
like this which alone can give the utmost efficiency 
to every operation ; which would suffer no ground 
13 



150 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

to lie waste, no talent to be unoccupied, no effort to 
be misdirected ; which would connect the exertion 
of each individual in his own peculiar locality with 
the efforts that were making in every direction, 
however distant, and unite his small field of labour 
with the line of operations which embraced pro- 
vinces and kingdoms. 

GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 

VI. Societies, however extended, must have 
their limits ; but a general corresponding society 
might commence its operations where others ended 
theirs, and begin to collect its information where 
others were forced to stop their action. Similar 
to the society for philosophic correspondence, for- 
merly pointed out, it would form a connecting band 
between Christians of all nations and languages, 
unconfined by any national barriers, and as diffusive 
as the light or the waters. It would perpetuate 
advancement, by communicating to the members 
who w T ere languid and inert, the hopes and the en- 
thusiasm of those who were active, and advancing ; 
would fix the eyes of all upon the contest, and 
augment the efforts and the success of the com- 
batants, by the interminable echo of applause and 
sympathy, which resounded from those who were 
pledged in the same cause, as they repeated the 
expression of their interest, from country to coun- 
try. Christians, however dispersed, are members 
of one body, but, as in a body paralysed and dis- 
eased, the communication between the members is 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 15 i 

interrupted, and unconscious of their mutual exis- 
tence, they cease to feel for each other ; a general 
corresponding society would spread a new sensibi- 
lity through every part, and would bring home to 
the rest the welfare and the sufferings of every re- 
mote portion, that all might sympathise, and that 
all might assist. It is from such a union alone that 
the full strength of Christians can be collected, and 
their resources made known ; and it is in this only 
way that a general body of directors can be consti- 
tuted, to whom application might be made in all 
possible occasions of emergency ; who would have 
it in their power to unlock the streams of benevo- 
lence, to increase and unfold the stores of philan- 
thropic and religious information ; and who might 
form the very heart through which the life-blood 
of whatever was excellent would circulate, and be 
the germ from which a new order of the moral 
world might be disclosed. For the formation of 
such a society, the commercial ascendency of Eng- 
land affords large scope, and frequent and easy 
openings ; the ocean which separated the ancient 
world unites her distant possessions, and the ends 
of the earth are brought into contact, by the cease- 
less passing and repassing of her fleets ; the influ- 
ence of her merchants is equally felt at the Anti- 
podes as upon the exchange of London; their 
Scandinavian ancestors are eclipsed by the enter- 
prise of their more pacific descendants ; and the 
most daring of the piratical chiefs of the Norse- 



152 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

men must yield in energy and perseverance to the 
modern " kings of the sea." ( H.) 

By means of such a correspondence the general 
body would rapidly increase in knowledge as well 
as in compactness ; no discovery of benevolence 
would be lost, no opportunity of usefulness would 
pass away. The art of benefiting mankind, of all 
arts the least studied in theory, if not the most 
neglected in practice, would receive a sudden tri- 
bute of ever-renewed accessions ; and while the 
greatest possible result of beneficence was produced 
by any given quantity of effort, and that quantity 
of effort was augmented to the highest degree, a 
new science would be evolved, the science of doing 
good, by the free and open communication from 
one end of Christendom to the other, of every plan 
and achievement by which the state of mankind 
might be ameliorated either for time or for eternity; 
and as the Romans immediately adopted those wea- 
pons for their own, whose edge and efficacy they 
had acknowledged in battle, so every instrument of 
beneficence, which has been aiding to the cause of 
humanity, and many engines, with which its true 
interests have been assailed, would be adopted and 
become general throughout Christendom, and be 
added to the armoury of those weapons, which are 
preparing for the moral conquest of the earth. 

NEWSPAPERS. 

VII. That impression of the general mind which 
a corresponding society would circulate through 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 153 

the world, the periodical press would give in a more 
defined, though in a more limited shape. It is de- 
sirable that this, one of the new energies of modern 
days, should be brought to exert a favourable influ- 
ence towards religion in its two forms — the registry 
of passing events, and the criticism of current opi- 
nions. It every day becomes more apparent, in 
the midst of the universal diffusion of partial know- 
ledge, what an important station they occupy who 
are enabled to reiterate, day after day, or month 
after month, their assertions, with or without proof, 
and how much of the popular creed is formed by 
their hearing the same dogmas boldly and endlessly 
insisted on; and, whilst the generality of mankind 
are incapable of large views, ignorant and careless 
of the past, and unable to penetrate into the future, 
the passing occurrence, or the passing opinion, will 
always be the materials which will occupy their 
imagination and constitute the furniture of their 
minds. But to derive profit from this childish tem- 
per, and to turn a weakness to good account, two 
sets of periodical works are requisite. A religious 
newspaper, and areligious review, if conducted upon 
right principles, and by men of vigorous under- 
standing, would fill the circle of those favourable 
influences, and complete the number of those aids 
which give a right disposition to the public mind. 
It is printing which gives one great superiority to 
later times ; and it is by the periodical press that 
that superiority is most suddenly and variously ma- 
nifested in the rapid transmission of every impulse 
13* 



154 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



throughout the whole frame-work of society. It 
has justly been said, that the circulation of newspa- 
pers would have contributed more to have preserved 
the freedom of the ancient republics than all the 
institutions of their legislators. Completely at the 
mercy of their orators, the citizens of Greece had 
nothing lasting and recorded to guide them. Im- 
pelled by the breath of the last speaker, and actu- 
ated by every rumour, they were sensible to each 
impression, but no impression was permanent. 
Feverishly excited by what was present, they were 
less attentive to the great changes which were slow- 
ly produced by time, and less provident against the 
real dangers which futurity was darkly disclosing. 
Writings, however imperfect, would have been a 
surer guide, than the crafty eloquence of those who 
subsisted in importance by fomenting the passions 
of the people, and a more sustained interest would 
have been kept up in the public affairs than could 
ever have been produced by that flame of transient 
patriotism which was suddenly kindled by the 
" winged words" of Pericles or Demosthenes ; but 
which, like the winged words that fanned it, depart- 
ed rapidly away. A city has ever a tendency to 
democracy ; the quick transmission of sentiment 
gives to the expression of its feelings a perpetually 
representative form, and embodies opinion in no 
questionable shape. It is only by an overwhelm- 
ing force that the movement of the popular mind 
can there be disregarded or repressed ; and, even 
amid countries subjected to tyrannical force, towns 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 155 

guard themselves, by the quickness of their resent- 
ment, from the acts of violence and injustice which 
are perpetrated without resistance in remoter pro- 
vinces. Newspapers communicate to a whole 
country the advantages which was formerly peculiar 
to a city, and spread the same impulse from province 
to province with as much rapidity, and more preci- 
sion than it could formerly have been circulated 
from one quarter of a large town to another. But 
the power of newspapers consists, not only in the 
rapidity of the transmission, but in the reiteration of 
their statements. Burke, thirty years ago, had the 
sagacity to perceive, that they who can gain the 
public ear from day to day, must, in the end, be- 
come the masters of public opinion, and the rapid 
increase of the numbers and of the influence of 
newspapers more than justifies his prediction. It 
was no bad observation of Fletcher of Salton, that, 
whoever made the laws of a nation he cared not, 
provided he had the making of their ballads. But 
now that nations are less addicted to ballad-singing, 
and more to the reading of newspapers, the high 
office of moulding institutions, and amending man- 
ners, is devolving upon the editors of daily or weekly 
journals. A very ungrounded complaint has been 
sometimes made, that the editors of newspapers 
are over apt to magnify their office, and to assume 
an undue degree of importance. On the contrary 
it is to be regretted that they are not sufficiently 
aware of the great benefits they might confer by a 
proper direction of their efforts, and of the injury 



156 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

they frequently occasion to public morals by the 
incautious admission of improper materials. As 
they gradually feel their own force, and rise in the 
scale of their own estimation, and in that of the 
nation, they w T ill employ their powers to better ad- 
vantage, and exert a more systematic and favoura- 
ble influence for good over the public mind. Even 
at present they are the main fulcrum and support of 
liberty ; it is through their medium that the House 
of Commons exerts its healthiest action upon the 
people at large, and is again reacted upon from 
without, and is made accessible throughout its re- 
cesses to the light and ventilation of free discussion. 
The most eloquent speeches would expire with 
their own echo within its walls without influencing 
a single vote, unless they were printed and circulat- 
ed in the columns of the newspapers. Editors 
may thus become more than the rivals of the ora- 
tors, whose speeches, imperfectly reported, must go 
forth to disadvantage in the records of the same 
journal ; and equal eloquence may have a wider 
effect when addressed boldly at once to the bar of 
public opinion, whose decision is of last resort, and 
whose verdict is mighty and will finally prevail. 

The great power of the daily and weekly press 
may in some degree be judged of, from the exer- 
tions which the Times journal, in cases of urgent 
extremity, has suddenly and successfully made in 
behalf of the unfortunate, and the relief which it 
has thus afforded where individual efforts would 
have altogether failed in the promptness and in the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 157 

efficacy required ; and the extent of such aid may 
clearly be seen from the subscriptions which are 
poured in to succour the distressed whenever the 
newspapers unite in representing their case to the 
public. At present these journals do not act upon 
a plan sufficiently systematic to show what could 
be done by great talents pursuing the same object 
from day to day, and from year to year ; and we 
must rather look to the past than to the present, to 
the times when the periodical press had not ac- 
quired the influence which it now possesses, for an 
example of the over-ruling force it can put forth, 
and of the mastery it can gain over the thoughts of 
the age, and of the current it can give to the gene- 
ral feeling. This example we may find in the Let- 
ters of Junius, which, in a great measure, gave a 
new tone to public sentiment, and still continue to 
exert an influence hostile to the rulers of the coun- 
try; and though, from the manifest disregard of 
truth in many of its statements, and the want of 
candour throughout, it is no longer, if it ever was, 
an authority in this country, and acts only in the 
deathless sting it has left behind it ; yet abroad it 
maintains a high reputation, and is a work of ac- 
knowledged reference, and was the book which 
the Emperor Napoleon consulted as the index of 
the national sentiments when he had the prospect 
of finding a refuge in England. If a writer who 
possessed equal talents with Junius, and who had 
on his side, what the other wanted, the force of 
truth, there can be no doubt that he would exercise 



158 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



a paramount sway over his cotemporaries, and 
leave behind a long- enduring authority and a lasting 
reputation. A religious writer of popular talents, 
and of a forcible style, could have no station of 
more extensive usefulness than the direction of a 
weekly newspaper. Neither the pulpit nor the se- 
nate house could afford him a more various or 
more ample field. Every good cause would re- 
quire his assistance, and would receive his easy and 
effectual support. He could open the fountain of 
public liberality, and direct its currents wherever 
they were required, while at the same time, he 
could mould the exertions of benevolent societies, 
and shape them into a more efficient form. Un- 
confined to any party or society, he would be the 
mutual benefactor of all, and their general de- 
fence ; for, lightly armed, and ever ready for ac- 
tion, he might be the earliest to repel an attack, and 
the first to lead in advance. 

REVIEWS. 

VIII. A review is the natural growth of the in- 
crease of knowledge, and of the augmentation of 
books. When the sciences were few, and the 
works written upon each were rare, and readers 
were men devoted to science, who read all that 
was written, and passed their own independent 
judgment on all that they read, there was no place 
for a critic by profession in the paucity of works re- 
cently published ; and, accordingly, the first books 
that were reviewed were not the new productions 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 159 

but the old ; and critics, instead of anticipating the 
judgment of the public, were employed in record- 
ing it, and in fixing the rules, according to which 
sentence had already been passed. But when 
books and readers multiplied, and the first became 
various, and the second superficial, notices of what 
newly published works contained became useful to 
those who had a few books to choose, and these out 
of a multitude. In process of time, these notices 
became analyses, and the analyses reviews, and 
these reviews grew in number, in bulk, and in im- 
portance ; and as the causes that have given them 
their importance are still operating and still grow- 
ing, the number and influence of reviews must 
go on prospering and multiplying ; and it becomes 
every day more essential that their tendency should 
be favourable to the establishment of right princi- 
ples, and to the promoting of the best interests of 
mankind. In a country like Britain, where party 
and politics mix their influence in every thing sacred 
and profane, it is not surprising that reviews should 
have received the same bias, and should take the co- 
lour of some prevailing faction, and that authors 
should be applauded or condemed for their taste in 
politics, rather than for their taste in literature. But 
it is not only for their literary injustice and party 
bias that some good men have objected to reviews, 
and to anonymous publications, but also for their 
tendency to private slander. Fear is the origin of 
much of the good breeding and good nature which 
pass current in the world ; and it is only when 



160 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

some men put on a mask that they show their real 
character ; and anonymous publications have served 
as a convenient shelter for those who would wil- 
lingly indulge their malice, provided they could 
be secure from all fear of consequences. But 
though these are frequent, they are by no means 
necessary concomitants of the writings of men, 
who favour the public with their opinions, but not 
their names ; nor is it likely that such defects will 
occur as frequently in the future as they have in the 
past. In works of this description, the worst have 
had the precedency, and better will follow ; as the 
ancients believed, that when the sun first quickened 
the original mud out of which all things were 
formed, monsters and vermin had the priority of 
birth, and afterwards more perfect creatures were 
brought to light, and higher orders of being, news- 
papers and reviews have improved greatly since 
the time of Pope and Smollett ; and though at- 
tempts are occasionally renewed to bring them 
back to their original state of degradation, yet we 
may trust to the ordinary course of improvement 
for their general amelioration ; and already that im- 
provement has in part taken place. If it were neces- 
sary, many examples might be pointed out where 
concealment has only added to the courtesy of an 
opponent, who, like the unknown knight of ancient 
romance, supplied the want of a device by his no- 
ble bearing and generosity to the vanquished. — 
While it is evident that a review might be conduct- 
ed by men of piety, free from all the objections 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 161 

which have been too readily applied to these works ; 
it is equally clear, from the assistance which politi- 
cal reviews have given to their party, how powerful 
an instrument such a review would be for promo- 
ting the influence of religion. Not that such publi- 
cations are even now deficient either in number or 
in excellence, but from particular circumstances, 
they want that extended circulation which is essen- 
tial to diffusive usefulness. To take the Eclectic 
alone as an example, a review to which Hall, Mont- 
gomery, and Foster, have contributed since its com- 
mencement, besides others nearly as eminent in 
their particular departments, must contain a great 
variety of excellence ; but a monthly publication is 
unfavourable for the selection of proper articles, 
and, of necessity, there is much inequality in a 
work which contains many brilliant passages of an 
eloquence seldom rivalled, and an originality of 
conception which those who are economical of 
their thoughts, and instructed in the art of book-ma- 
king, would never have expended in an anonymous 
publication. Were a quarterly work written with 
equal talents, but conducted upon a better plan, and 
if, above all, it forgot the minor differences which 
divide and distract the christian world, it would act 
not only on the minds of readers, but of authors, 
and would raise the standard of moral feeling, 
while it deterred from literary delinquency. It is 
not desirable that a review should insist directly 
upon religion, — that subject is better, and more 
amply discussed elsewhere ; but its aim should be 
14 



162 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



to place all subjects in their right position, to give 
them their just value, and to view them in the per- 
vading light which revelation sheds around them. — 
Such a publication would have an ampler range 
than those which are tied down to advocate the 
cause of a particular party, it would embrace a cir- 
cle as wide as the interests of humanity, and would 
supply the want of personal invective or political 
rancour, by engaging in the cause of mankind at 
large, and addressing not the prejudices of a few, 
but those interests and sympathies which are co-ex- 
tensive with our common nature. 

SCHOOLS. 

IX, A wide scope is offered to benevolent exer- 
tion, in the improvement of schools, and in the 
diffusion of education. It is the defect of educa- 
tion, as we have formerly said, which has diminish- 
ed and curtailed the beneficial results of the disco- 
very of printing ; and as the influence of printing 
has thus been circumscribed, the influence of re- 
ligion has been diminished along with it; for as 
printing owes its origin to religion, so religion will 
partly owe its ultimate diffusion to the prevalence 
of the press. It is no paradox to trace the disco- 
very and general use of printing to the Bible. The 
learning of the ancients was a luxury confined to 
the great, and their books were copied and prepar- 
ed by their slaves ; what was popular was poetry, 
and that committed less to writing than to the re- 
citation of the rhapsodists. What instruction they 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 163 

had was oral, they learned the mysteries of religion 
from the voice of the priests or hierophant, the in- 
terests of the state from the debates of their ora- 
tors, the history of their country from the triumphal 
trophies that recorded ancient victories, or in the 
solemnities and funeral orations that embalmed the 
memory of the patriots who had fallen in battle 
Their philosophy had less its preservation from 
books than from schools of disciples, who upheld 
under the same portico, or under the shade of the 
same trees, from age to age, the tenets of their 
masters. But when the learning of the Greeks, 
with the miracles of their art, followed like captives 
in the train of the conquerors, and swelled the tri- 
umphal pomp of Roman victories, the ever-present 
remembrances of Grecian literature were absent, 
the reciter, the orator, and the schools, with each 
its band of disputants, — and books became indis- 
pensable, as the only records and monuments which 
could transfer from Athens to Rome the learning of 
the former. But the volumes that filled the libraries 
of Rome were easily accumulated by the wealth of 
the patricians, and multiplied by their domestic 
transcribers, while the people at large found matter 
more congenial to their taste in the bloody shows 
of the amphitheatre, than in pondering the works 
of Grecian genius, and the happy imitations of them 
which their own country had afforded. But in 
countries where civilization had not attained the 
same eminence as in the ancient republics of the 
south of Europe, yet it had penetrated deeper, 



164 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



partly from being of longer standing, and partly 
from these countries possessing writings which were 
acknowledged to be records of the divine will. The 
speculations of philosophers could interest but a 
few ; the supposed intimations of the Deity were 
the concern of all mankind ; the reveries of Plato 
were addressed solely to the most refined of the 
Athenians, who alone could expect to mingle in the 
elysiums of poets and heroes ; but the disclosures, 
and the heavens of popular revelations were open 
to all who had complied with the rites of the na- 
tional religions ; and the Vedas of Hindostan, 
written in a remoter age and more barbarous coun- 
try, attracted more readers than all the disquisitions 
of the Greeks respecting the chief good and the 
origin of things. The Koran, a more popular reli- 
gion than the Vedas, founded on no philosophical 
views, but demanding the attention of every one, 
under the penalty of an infinite loss, was still more 
adapted to be generally read, and the erection of a 
mosque might frequently be accompanied by that of 
a school ; and a concern about religion is naturally 
attended with a desire to peruse the volume which 
reveals futurity ; but the flattering prospect of Ara- 
bian civilization disappeared, as we have formerly 
said, with their empire, which fell as suddenly as it 
rose ; the language of the koran was no longer the 
language of the mass of the moslem ; and the ar- 
dour of the Turks and the Persians to read " the 
book" was damped and delayed by the sacred do- 
cuments being couched in a foreign language. Si- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 165 

rnilar was the case during the dark ages, and in the 
Catholic countries; but the truths of the Bible, 
however darkened, appealed more strongly to the 
conscience, and were more awful in their import, 
and accordingly produced a wider effect upon so- 
ciety, spread education, and multiplied the number 
of readers ; the prevalence of reading produced a 
greater number of copies, and the number of co- 
pies increased the facilities for the acquisition of 
reading. The infinite importance of the revelation 
to the interests, temporal and eternal, of mankind,, 
made it most meritorious and imperative to afford 
the utmost facility and freest access to the sacred 
volume ; and the Catholic priesthood, not aware 
that the weapons they were furnishing might be 
turned against themselves, were the great patrons 
of learning, and promoters of elementary education, 
and to the church was annexed a school, and to the 
monastery a copying room. In China, the art of 
printing had been first invented, and the two causes 
of its discovery might be found in the depth of its 
ancient civilization, and in the rude and elementary 
nature of its characters ; for as the characters of 
the Chinese are signs of things and not of letters, 
and as the simplest invention of printing is that of 
immoveable types, there is less distance between 
Chinese writing and Chinese printing, than between 
the invention of printing and writing in Europe. 
The chances, therefore, were greatly in favour of 
the Chinese having the priority of the invention of 
printing, but not of its general use ; for the want 
14* 



166 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

was by no means equal in the east and west of a 
more powerful and cheaper mode of multiplying 
copies. It is only where a number of copies of 
the same work are wanted that printing would be 
brought into general application ; and in the num- 
ber of readers who pressed forward to the study 
of the bible, and in the religious works that were 
written in accordance with it, we have the cause of 
the introduction of printing during an age still dark, 
if compared to the illumination of the few during 
the bright days of Greece and of Rome, but sur- 
passing former ages in the more general diffusion of 
simple and elementary truths, in which the peasant 
and the philosopher are equally concerned. 

The theory of education is still very deficient, 
and it is not wonderful that the practice should have 
been still more so ; the present system of learning 
had its rise in the dark ages, when an acquaintance 
with the dead languages was thought the principal 
requisite for knowledge, the key that would open 
those treasures of antiquity, which embraced all the 
riches of the mind ; and the effects of this notion 
have remained long after the opinion which gave 
rise to them was deserted. Milton, Locke, and 
Rousseau have successfully entertained sounder 
views, but mixed with many errors. Their errors 
have been well noted, but the truths which they 
discovered have not yet been applied to any extent. 
If education in general has been carried on with 
no enlightened views, the instruction which is adapt- 
ed to the poorer class has been still more neg- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 167 

lected. In Scotland, where parochial schools have 
long been established, and instruction has been uni- 
versal, far from there having been a progress during 
the last half of the late century, there has rather 
been a decline ; and the abilities of the teachers and 
the desire of being taught, have in several instan- 
ces suffered a diminution. It is the common fate of 
institutions which have no rivals, first to become 
stationary, and afterwards retrograde ; and to enjoy 
praise for past pre-eminence, is safer and more 
pleasant than to merit it by present exertion. But 
a general impulse has lately been given, and great 
efforts are making both in the old and the new 
world, so that countries which are not rapidly ad- 
vancing will soon be left behind, in the swift pro- 
gress that is proceeding around them. A society 
for collecting and diffusing information on the sub- 
ject of education would now be of great advantage ; 
schools at a distance, or in foreign countries, have, 
till of late, attracted little attention, or when noticed, 
have been but indifferently described : but a society 
could easily remedy this deficiency, could acquire 
an exact outline of every method of teaching, in 
France and in Germany, in England and in Ame- 
rica, and combine in a single periodical publication, 
their various excellencies, so as to present them to 
the reader in contact and comparison. A model 
school would likewise be of essential benefit, in re- 
ducing the most approved method of teaching into 
practice ; and in not only exhibiting its advantages 
visibly, but in training up a new race of schoolmas- 



168 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

ters in the knowledge and practice of that method 
which it was desirable should be diffused. These 
model schools might be of two sorts, as circumstan- 
ces dictated ; either consisting wholly of those who 
are selected from other schools, and intended to be 
schoolmasters ; or, which is the simplest plan, com- 
posed of monitors, who alone are intended to be 
schoolmasters ; and, who, at the same time that they 
are learning themselves, assist the master in teach- 
ing an ordinary day school. The latter, as it is the 
least artificial and expensive method, is in most cir- 
cumstances the best; and an improved class of 
teachers may gradually be raised without difficulty, 
and be spread through the country, trained up by 
long habit, to the best mode of teaching, and who 
from the first have been selected on account of 
their aptitude for the office they are designed to fill. 
It is an important requisite that schoolmasters 
should be men of piety ; and no others, generally 
speaking, will properly execute their trust : the irk- 
someness of repeating the same task, and the con- 
tinual struggle with obstinacy and perversity, will 
in course of time, weary out every one who has 
not a religious motive for perseverance, except in a 
few cases, where, from the natural bent, the employ- 
ment itself is a pleasure, or where the due perfor- 
mance of the duty is narrowly watched by a scruti- 
nizing eye. In the present day especially, when 
the religious principle is not early implanted, edu- 
cation becomes a very doubtful boon. The gene- 
ral mind is stirring and awake,, but not always to 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 169 

wholesome truths ; and in the great moral revolu- 
tion which is on the eve of taking place, the thoughts 
of men, feverish and unsettled, require some better 
guide than the common-place precepts, and power- 
less direction, which an education without religion 
can furnish. 

LIBRARIES. 

X. An increase of books is a necessary effect of 
the increase of readers ; and, as education becomes 
general, village libraries will augment in number, 
and rise in importance. Even at the present time, 
a considerable sum is expended by the labouring 
classes of Scotland in the purchase of books — a 
sum which is annually increasing in a much greater 
ratio than many are aware of; and hence it becomes 
highly important, in every point of view, that these 
hard earnings should be well expended, and that 
the short time which the labourer takes from his 
rest and devotes to reading, should not be thrown 
away on useless, or pernicious writings. It is pleas- 
ing to see how far a village subscription library, 
which the peasants have chosen for themselves, ex- 
cels a circulating library which consults the taste of 
the more idle and affluent in towns ; how much 
more careful those are who have a property in the 
books they read, than others, who have better op- 
portunities of information, but who, as subscribers 
for a night, merely wish to pass the time. In circu- 
lating libraries, the works are, in general, of the most 
trifling character, and mark the lowest class of readers 



170 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

who are content with books that present to them the 
vagueness and incoherence of their own thoughts, 
only distorted into more wild and unnatural combi- 
nations ; but little of this trash appears in libraries 
which are the property of the members. A new 
class of works appear, not always perhaps the best 
adapted to the wants of the purchasers, but which 
are of a much superior description, and lead the 
attention to more important objects. These libra- 
ries are of a still higher order when an individual in 
the neighbourhood of intelligence and superior edu- 
cation has given his advice and assistance in the 
formation of them ; and it is evident from experi- 
ence, that they are moulded into their best shape 
when the choice of the members is thus guided by 
an informed judgment, and gently but perseveringly 
directed to works that are of sterling and lasting 
excellence. A book society would here be of great 
service, to co-operate with individuals, by aiding in 
the selection of libraries that were about to be 
formed, and superintending those that were already 
established. While, on the one hand, it might influ- 
ence the rich to be of most essential use to their 
neighbourhood, at a small expense to themselves ; 
on the other, it might present to the labouring classes 
a list of books to direct their choice amidst the 
multitude of works published, of which they know 
nothing but the titles, or some deceitful panegyric 
contained in a friendly review. And, lastly, the 
proposed society, by taking a large quantity of 
books from a bookseller at a reduced price, might 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 171 

be enabled, without expense to themselves, to afford 
them at a lower rate to the poor, and thus, making 
their advice palatable by the pecuniary advantages 
which accompanied it, they might acceptably exer- 
cise a salutary influence over the libraries which 
were under their care. 

Here the advantage of a religious review is again 
manifest ; the desire of reading the works which 
are reviewed in the leading journals is the guiding 
motive with most village libraries for the purchase 
of new publications, and they remain ignorant of, 
and unprovided with, many works of real utility, 
which are past over in silence by the oracles in 
whom they put their trust. A review that would 
do justice to productions of real merit, without bias 
to any particular set of opinions, and which gave 
due importance to those which were likely to bene- 
fit the large body of the people, either in a temporal 
or religious point of view, would, among many other 
benefits, greatly improve the collections of those 
country libraries which are everywhere springing 
up, and would bring before the attention of those 
who are least able to judge for themselves, writings 
which might greatly improve their condition in this 
life, and tend to secure their happiness in another. 
It is the misfortune of many of the best religious 
works we possess, that the age has gone past them, 
and that they remain in their antiquated stiffness, 
soliciting attention in vain from those whose thoughts 
are moulded by newer writers, and to whom their 
phraseology is as uncouth, and as little intelligible, 



172 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

as if they had written in a language foreign to their 
readers. Religious works in general are of a pro- 
fessional cast, and professions cling with tenacity 
to their own peculiarities, 'and strive hard against 
that stream of innovation which is ever wearing 
away the embankments that they laboriously have 
raised. While Aristotle has long been dismissed 
from the rest of the living world, his authority may 
still be traced in the divisions and dispositions of 
sermons ! and those who would have attacked most 
perseveringly every position of Aquinas, have yet 
unconsciously, and at many removes, been influ- 
enced by his summary in the ordering of their bo- 
dies of divinity. A new race of writers is required, 
who shall build upon a higher philosophy, and who, 
renovated by the spirit of a new age, shall walk 
abroad in the liberty which religion and reason as- 
sign to them. 

HOME MISSIONS. . 

XI. Of all methods for diffusing religion, preach- 
ing is the most efficient ; other methods are indirect 
and preparatory, but the simple proclaiming of the 
gospel has in all ages been attended with the most 
transforming efficacy, elevating the few who have 
cordially accepted it into a higher and happier state 
of being, and even raising the many who have re- 
jected it to a better system of moral opinions. It 
is to preaching that Christianity owes its origin, its 
continuance, and its progress ; and it is to itinerant 
preaching, however much the ignorant may under- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 173 

value it, that we owe the conversion of the Roman 
world from paganism to primitive Christianity; our 
own freedom from the thraldom of popery in the 
success of the reformation ; and the revival of 
Christianity, at the present day, from the depression 
which it had undergone owing to the prevalence of 
infidelity and of indifference. Books, however ex- 
cellent, require at least some previous interest on 
the part of the person who is to open and to peruse 
them ; but the preacher arrests that attention which 
the written record only invites, and the living voice 
and the listening numbers heighten the impression 
by the sympathy and enthusiasm which they excite : 
the reality which the truths spoken possess in the 
mind of the speaker, is communicated to the feel- 
ings of the hearers, and they end in sharing the 
same views, at least for the moment, and in aug- 
menting each other's convictions. The arguments 
which are urged for sending missions to the hea- 
then, acquire a double force when applied to the 
case of our countrymen at home ; they have the 
first claim upon us ; their ignorance is often as great 
as that of the heathen, or, if not so great, then their 
guilt is augmented in a higher proportion with their 
greater facilities of learning ; and our duty becomes 
more imperative in this case, by the facility which 
we have of removing their ignorance. Home mis- 
sionary exertions benefit the body of Christians 
who make them, as well as those for whose sake 
they are made ; there could be no method more 
certain of re-animating a decaying interest, than 
15 



174 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

attempts to spread the truths of religion ; and new 
hopes and new strength are infused by the endeav- 
our to communicate a renovation of life to others. 
It is not only the denominations of Christians who 
are thus active that receive the benefit, all partake 
of the same new impulse, and partly from emula- 
tion, and partly for self-defence, are hurried into 
the same career of benevolence. The whole ma- 
chine is so closely connected, that one wheel sets 
the rest in motion, and the whole frame- work of 
religious society proceeds with an accelerated velo- 
city. In England, the Home Missionary Society 
is rapidly increasing in its funds, though the field of 
its exertion as yet is somewhat contracted. In 
Scotland, two bodies of Christians have intentions 
of completely covering the whole country with 
their stations ; and if the vigour of the dissenters 
were equal to their resources, they would compel 
the establishment either to give ground, or to adopt 
a similar energy of action, as in the introduction of 
new principles into tactics, all must speedily comply 
with the improvements which have taken place, 
or resign the equality which they formerly main- 
tained. 

BIBLE SOCIETIES. 

XII. The proposal of a variety of means for the 
attainment of any end, seems often to make the 
object sought after more difficult to be reached, 
while the choice is perplexed by the multiplicity of 
expedients. The Bible Society, which, from its 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 175 

all-embracing nature, is capable of uniting these 
means in one harmonious action, may be brought 
forward as a fit example and instance of the sim- 
plicity of their results, and the facility of their com- 
bination. Pope has drawn a just and fine distinction 
between the works of God and man : — 

"In human works, though labour'd on with pain, 
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain : 
In God's, one single can its end produce ; 
Yet serves to second too some other use." 

This distinction holds almost invariably good ; 
but the Bible Society, as if privileged by its con- 
nection with the sacred volume which it seeks to 
distribute, is equally remarkable for the extreme 
simplicity of its purpose, and for the countless va- 
riety of its results. Its object, though simple and 
one, is immense and sublime, the distribution of the 
word of God to the whole earth ; but that object, 
were it attained, great as it is, would be rivalled by 
the benefits which spring up under its influence in- 
directly and unexpectedly, along every path it 
pursues, and which multiply as it advances. The 
Bible Society might afford many of the advantages 
formerly pointed out as likely to arise from the 
establishment of a general religious association ; 
it is an excellent remedy for the weakness of the 
Christian body, which proceeds from their scatter- 
ed condition, and a never failing bond of recog- 
nition and union. No simpler or better test could 
have been contrived for ascertaining the number 
of those who take a serious interest in religion 



176 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

than the proposal of a contribution too small to be 
burdensome to any, for communicating to the na- 
tions the words of eternal life. And though all 
who contribute may not be drawn to do so by the 
proper motive, yet it is evident that those who do 
not contribute are destitute of the very commence- 
ment of right principles, and hence, wherever the 
cause of the Bible Society has been rightly ex- 
plained and enforced, a list is obtained, a too favour- 
able list no doubt of those who are friendly to 
Christianity, and who are disposed to make some 
small sacrifice for spreading the knowledge of the 
truth. Thus the Bible Society becomes a rallying 
point for all christians, as it affords a basis of union 
broad enough to admit every varying shade of opin- 
ion, and lifts up a conspicuous standard to all those 
who are engaged in earnest in the great work of fur- 
thering the Redeemer's kingdom. It is admirably 
adapted for exhibiting the advantages and the ar- 
rangement of a well organized committee ; the ex- 
tent of its operations, as well as their variety, natu- 
rally lead to a distinct classification ; the remoteness 
of the objects it pursues demands the care of sala- 
ried and responsible agents ; and the immensity of 
the whole work, and the minuteness of many of its 
parts, require the active co-operation of numbers, 
who, from their subdivisions, may distribute their at- 
tention among the perplexity of details, while, from 
the momentum of their united influence, they can 
communicate a wide and general movement. The 
Bible Society might also excellently exemplify the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 177 

division of an extensive country into counties and 
districts, appointing a correspondent to each coun- 
ty, who could afford that local knowledge which is 
requisite for minute success, and exert a superin- 
tendence from which nothing could escape, and lend 
that present and personal aid which gives a double 
value to every existing advantage ; and this system 
might possess every desirable minuteness and effi- 
cacy, by each county correspondent having under 
him an agent for every district, and each district 
agency having a ramification into every parish, so 
that the whole country might be brought under an 
action which had neither blanks nor pauses, but 
was full, continual, and systematic. This society 
might readily give rise to a general correspondence, 
which, though in some measure limited, and direct- 
ed to the immediate concerns of the distribution of 
the Bible, would still serve as an index of the pros- 
perity of religion, in all countries to which the 
agents of the society had access, or where its cause 
had been advocated. We have before observed 
how closely religion, education, and the demand for 
books are connected in the mass of the people ; and 
the Bible Society has in some degree done the 
work of an educational society in the new impulse 
which it has given to the cause of elementary learn- 
ing : while a substitute for home missions might al- 
most be found in the reiterated appeals which must 
be made to the public in behalf of a society, which 
requires so vast an expenditure, and which de- 
mands a zeal for its support and progress, only to 
15* 



178 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

be kept in vigour by a continued recurrence to the 
truths, and to the importance of revelation. The 
indirect advantages that result from the Bible Soci- 
ety, proceed also, though in a more confined de- 
gree, from the exertions of Missionary Societies ; 
but as the foundation of the latter is narrower, so 
their influence is less catholic and comprehensive ; 
nor will even the Bible Society realize all that it 
might effect, until it shall have approached its best 
form, and received the complete organization of 
which it is susceptible. Abroad it requires a more 
systematic and numerous agency, and at home a di- 
vision and subdivision of the ground from which it 
must gather its revenues, and which it must cover 
with its collectors. Much of a false economy pre- 
vails, the agents are too few, and too ill paid : the 
services of men of the highest talent w T ould be re- 
quired, one in each of the principal countries 
abroad, to watch over the distant operations, which 
are sure to be mismanaged if not narrowly inspect- 
ed ; and the salaries of agents, however considera- 
ble, would be amply repaid by the savings that 
would be effected in a wasteful expenditure, and the 
prevention of errors that must inevitably arise 
where there is no system and no control. Modern 
writers have discovered that words are more plen- 
tiful than thoughts ; and that therefore the true 
economy of writing consists in being sparing of the 
latter, and profuse of the former ; the reports of 
different societies carry this even too far, and one 
may read through a long report, and reach the con* 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 179 

elusion without meeting a single new fact, or new 
observation by the way ; this ought to be amended, 
and a series of publications which would extend the 
knowledge, and deepen the interest which the sub- 
scribers take in the progress of religion, are strong- 
ly required, before that interest can become more 
general and abiding. With several defects, the 
Bible Society continues the most perfect institution 
of its kind, and the finest example of the power of 
voluntary association. It has merited the obloquy 
of that corruption of Christianity which styles it- 
self catholic ; and while it has done religion one 
service, by uniting all its friends in one great cause. 
it has done it a second service, by uniting all its ene- 
mies, however hostile to each other against it : thus 
ranging each side front to front, and preparing them 
for one decisive and final struggle. It leaves every 
one without excuse who does not co-operate with 
it ; it combines all classes and all creeds, the poor 
may contribute their mite, and the rich may pour in 
their abundance; and those who build precious 
things, and those who heap up stubble upon the 
foundation of the Scriptures, have here one point of 
agreement in the foundation for which they both 
earnestly contend. It has done more good than all 
the theological discussions for the last hundred 
years ; and though it has confuted no heresy, it has 
done still better, for it has made many be neglected 
and forgotten. It oversteps the boundaries of king- 
doms, and the separation of national jealousies, and 
presents a field wide enough for men of all nations 



180 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 

and languages to enter, without conflicting or jarring 
with each other ; its field is truly the world ; it em- 
braces directly or indirectly, all the interests of hu- 
manity ; and it is ever profusely distributing the be- 
nefits of time, while its ultimate results are lost in 
the glories of eternity. 

ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION AT HOME AND 
ABROAD MUTUAL. 

XIII. The Bible Society affords an excellent il- 
lustration of how closely connected the advance- 
ment of religion is both at home and abroad ; so 
mutual is their progress, that it is difficult to sepa- 
rate them even in thought ; and the action and re- 
action of their common movements are not only 
conjoined, but mutually accelerating and augment- 
ing. The efforts that are made abroad, demand 
more than an equal effort at home, to supply their 
expenditure ; and the improvements that are made 
at home will not only be transferred to foreign en- 
terprise and missionary exertions, but will be spread 
over a large expanse, and have a wider range than 
the country which gave them birth could afford. — 
What is gained for humanity in one corner, how- 
ever remote, is gained for humanity throughout the 
world ; in the course of years the same improve- 
ment in practice will be everywhere adopted, and 
the new accession of principles will be universally 
made known ; the schools of art in Great Britian 
will serve as models for the instruction of work- 
men in Mexico and Peru ; and the schools which 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 181 

circulate through the glens of Wales, or the Scot- 
tish Highlands, will have their counter-parts in the 
defiles of Caucasus, or in those which are ascend- 
ing the sides of the Andes, or penetrating the roots 
of the Himmalaya. 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 



PART FOURTH. 
ADVANCEMENT OF RELIGION ABROAD. 



MAP OF THE WORLD. 

I. The ancient mythologists divined well when 
they said, that the " River Ocean" flowed round the 
world. They could scarcely have guessed, how- 
ever, that it divided the earth into two great islands, 
though they had some dark forewarnings of the 
existence of America in the fable of Atlantis, as 
mariners sometimes see the land to which they are 
steering, long before they have reached it, indis- 
tinctly reflected upon the clouds. 

Asia may be considered as constituting the mass 
of the old continent, and branching out into three 
subdivisions — the islands of the Great Ocean, Eu- 
rope, and Africa — broken down towards the east 
into innumerable islands, which, diminishing in size, 
and increasing in number, are lost in their minute- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 183 

ness, and their multitude, in the expanse of the Pa- 
cific — prolonged towards the north-west by Europe: 
which, though not altogether divided into islands, is 
yet, in some measure, insulated by mediterranean 
seas — and continued to the south-west by the pe- 
ninsula of Africa, which, the contrast of Europe, 
repels every entrance of the waves from its unbro- 
ken and continuous coast. While the new 7 continent 
of America, opposed in its direction to the old, and 
stretching from pole to pole, is determined in its 
shape by that gigantic line of mountains, which, 
bordering on the perpetual winters of the arctic and 
antarctic circle, carry a range of unmelting snow- 
through all the zones and climates of the earth. 

Asia is distinguished by natural divisions into 
central, northern, south-eastern, and south-western 
Asia. Central Asia is separated by ranges of moun- 
tains into the middle, eastern, and western region, 
the original seats of the three great races of Scy- 
thian Herdsmen, the Moguls, the Mandshurs, and 
the Turks. The middle region, the country of the 
Moguls or Calmucks, may be considered as the 
nucleus and head-land of Asia from which the moun- 
tains break off in all directions, and from which the 
immense rivers of Asia run to the east, and to the 
west, or fall into the icy sea, or into the Indian 
Ocean; while its inhabitants have spread, like its 
waters, over half the world — have pitched their 
camp with Attila on the plains of Champagne, or 
on the eastern shores of China with the descendants 
of Zingis Khan, and have collected in the chace the 



184 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

furs of Siberia, or supported the descendants of 
Timour on the throne of Delhi. This elevated 
region of snows and clouds, which maintains an 
almost unbroken winter in the vicinity of the tropic, 
has assimilated its peculiar inhabitants to itself, who, 
in their hardened and stunted frames, and in their 
ossified and flattened features, bear the impress of 
their iron soil and relentless sky. Yet even here 
there are favoured spots, some sheltered enclosure 
protected by the projecting rocks from the ice 
wind, or some valley which the rivers have hollow- 
ed out and clad with soil, some forest which receives 
mould and shelter from the overtopping mountain, 
or some plain to which an almost vertical sun has 
given a transient but abundant vegetation, like that 
sea of verdure which Timour beheld at his feet 
when he was crossing the mountain Ulagh. 

Central Asia is somewhat softened in its eastern 
division of Mandshuria, where the cold is thawed 
by the neighbourhood of the sea, and the inland 
regions are fertilized by the waters of the Amoor, 
and sheltered by its magnificent forests. But its 
shores are desert, and its woods solitary ; the tomb 
of the fisher is more frequently seen on its coast 
than the bark of the living, — the mausoleum which 
the emperors of China have erected to their ances- 
tors is more splendid than their palace ; and it seems 
as if the mass of the nation had expatriated them- 
selves to take possession of their conquests in the 
south. Touran, as the Persian poets called the 
third division of Central Asia, is a still milder and 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 185 

more fertile region, as the ground rapidly descends, 
and the sky brightens after passing the Belur Tag, 
or the Mountains of Darkness, till the delicious val- 
ley of Samarcand and Bochara opens out, and dis- 
plays the green meadows and blossoming gardens, 
the castles and towns of Mawar al Nahar, whose 
inhabitants, in the mildness of their climate, lose the 
Scythian cast of countenance, and are alike celebra- 
ted for their bravery and beauty by the ancient 
poets of Iran. 

Northern Asia, or Siberia, loses by its northern 
exposure and latitude what it gains by the descent 
of the ground towards the icy sea; and winter 
lingers round the year in the recesses of its w T oods, 
and in the depth of its morasses, where the ice 
never melts ; and only some favoured situations, by 
a peculiarly happy exposure, enjoy the benefit of a 
brief but rapid summer. But even in its uniform 
desolation there are shades of difference, and the 
country beyond the Yenesei is still more Siberian 
than that which is nearer to Russia. It is thus that 
Asia has no temperate climate ; it is divided by its 
central range of mountains between winter and 
summer. 

South-eastern Asia, which is its warm and tropi- 
cal division, may be divided into China, India, and 
the Indo-Chinese countries. In China, if the cold 
and heat are not intermixed into a temperate cli- 
mate, they are interspersed into a variegated tem- 
perature, where the hills retain the coldness of Tar- 
tary, and the valleys unite the warmth of India to 
16 



186 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

the mildness and moisture of the neighbourhood of 
the southern sea ; thus furnishing, with every variety 
of climate, every variety of production. Japan 
may be considered as a smaller and insulated Chi- 
na, surrounded by the atmosphere of the Pacific, and 
therefore presenting the same range of temperature, 
modified by its vicinity to the ocean. 

The Arabs, while they allowed the superiority of 
the head of the Greeks, and assigned to themselves 
the superiority of the tongue, in the arts of eloquence 
and poetry, acknowledged the super-eminence of 
the Chinese in all kinds of handicraft and mechan- 
ical skill. The improvement to which the Chinese 
have carried the arts, and their deficiency in native 
science and imagination, form a striking contrast 
with the inhabitants of Hindostan — that garden of 
Asia, the region of perpetual summer. The Chi- 
nese show their affinity to the herdsmen of the 
highlands of Asia by the form of their features, 
their language, their civilization, and even by the 
character of their intelligence ; while the Indians 
claim alliance with the Greeks and Europeans, by 
their mythology and their philosophy, by their lan- 
guage and by their genius. These two nations, so 
different, mingle together in India beyond the 
Ganges, in proportions varying according to their 
proximity to their original countries; and as the 
population, so the climate of each country is com- 
bined — in the ranges of mountains, and in the vast 
rivers, which vie with the mountainous features and 
rivers of China — in the heat and the abundant mois- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 187 

ture, which reproduce the tropical vegetation of 
India. Both the animal and vegetable worlds here 
assume their largest dimensions ; this is the native 
region of the teak forest, and of the elephant. 
Nature itself is on so large a scale, that every range 
of mountains forms the boundary of a kingdom, 
and every valley constitutes an empire. 

This 'region, by the jutting out of the Peninsu- 
la of Malacca forms a connexion with the Spice 
Islands, which owe their luxuriance to their being 
placed beneath the sun of the equator, in the midst 
of a boundless ocean ; and while, in one of their 
group, New-Holland, which presents an image of 
Arabia in the midst of the Pacific, they attain al- 
most to the size of a continent, their size is lessened 
in the Isles of Polynesia till they form but a single 
rock or a bed of coral emerging from the waves. 

South western Asia, which consists of Persia, 
the countries watered by the Tigris and the Eu- 
phrates, Caucasus, Asia Minor, Syria, and Arabia, 
may be considered the most temperate region of 
Asia, and which has most variety of seasons, though 
still liable to the extremes of heat and cold. In 
the valleys of the Afghans, and amid the anarchy of 
their rude tribes, the first germs of public liberty, 
which we meet with in the eastern parts of the old 
continent, are to be found ; and in the Mekraun, 
and through the middle of Persia, is a wide tract of 
those burning sands, which, stretching across Ara- 
bia, are prolonged in Africa to the shores of the At- 
lantic, and to the mountains beneath the equator. — 



188 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



In the hills of Khorasan, and along the ridge that 
overlooks the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. 
the rival races of Iran and Touran have ceased to 
contend for superiority, and the last of the Zund ? 
the original tribe of Persia, have disappeared from 
the neighbourhood of the ruins of Persepohs, their 
ancient capital. The Tigris and the Euphrates no 
longer water the gardens of the king of the world, 
but the Curds still dwell in their narrow and fertile 
valleys, beneath their perpetual snows, as invincible 
as when Xenophon penetrated the defiles of their 
country, or in their earlier days, when their capital 
was the victorious Nineveh. Caucasus contains as 
many languages and tribes as glens, the fragments 
of nations that have passed over it, and have set- 
tled in distant regions of the earth, and have left 
remnants behind them, like the patches of the win- 
ter snow that remain in the same valleys, while the 
mass of which they are a minute portion has long 
melted and passed away from the mountains upon 
which for a time it rested. Asia Minor, as it ap- 
proaches Europe in situation, so it resembles it in 
character and climate. Like Spain, it consists of 
dry, elevated table land in the interior, where, in 
the pure air, and the aromatic pastures of the 
mountains, the fleeces of the flocks assume a finer 
and silkier texture ; and, while the forests of Pon- 
tus rival the woods of the Asturias, and the Galli- 
cia ; the banks of the Meander, and the delightful 
region of Ionia, surpass in mildness the orange 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 189 

groves of Portugal, and the shores of the golden 
Tagus. 

Syria derives a double character from its prox- 
imity to Arabia and to the Mediterranean. Bar- 
ren, and almost a continuation of the Arabian wil- 
derness, it assumes a garden-like fertility as its hills 
approach to the sea ; the forests of Lebanon and 
Carmel, with the groves of the Daphne, the or- 
chards of Damascus, with the vines of the hills of 
Judea, and the corn of its plains, once ranked 
among the most luxuriant and among the most cul- 
tivated spots of the earth ; while Arabia, farther to 
the south, formed a desolate contrast, stripped of all 
vegetation but the few palms which indicated the 
secret waters of the desert, or the prickly plants 
upon which the camel alone could browze ; and 
its sterile uniformity was only interrupted by moun- 
tains, which broke the clouds, and retained their 
waters in the wells of the rock, and which formed 
upon their terraced sides the gardens of the burn- 
ing wastes around them. These mountains, be- 
coming frequent and continuous towards the south, 
enclosed the happy Arabia, where hills and valleys, 
showers and sunshine, produce a variety and ver- 
dure, the reverse of the burnt-up expanse of the 
sands. 

The north of Africa is on a larger scale, and, to 
an intenser degree, a repetition of the heat and bar- 
renness of Arabia, with two lines of vegetation in- 
terrupting its immense sterility. The course of 
the Nile on the east, and the Mediterranean with 
16* 



190 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



the range of Atlas to the north, secure each a strip 
of northern Africa from the barrenness of the rest. 
The vale of the Nile widens towards its mouth, and 
the double valley of Atlas, on either side of it, 
stretches farther as the shores of the Atlantic are 
joined to those of the Mediterranean ; while the 
islands of verdure in Africa are still more remarka- 
ble than those of Arabia from the vaster desolation 
around them. Beyond the great Sahara, the most 
sterile region of the world, arises the most produc- 
tive and fertile, — central Africa, where heat and 
moisture, the two great instruments of vegetation, 
are most abundant, and where the mountains, and 
the sides of the lakes and rivers, are the most over- 
grown with vegetation and teeming with life. Af- 
rica presents some variety of feature on its eastern 
and western sides. The eastern appears to be the 
most elevated and open. To the west are the 
mouths of the largest and most frequent rivers, and 
the most fertile and irrigated plains. On the west 
the inhabitants subsist by cultivating patches cleared 
out of the immense forests, and to the east they 
wander with their herds over a less fertile, but, at 
the same time, a less overgrown country. This 
elevated table-land becomes still more pervious as 
it approaches the Cape of Good Hope. The 
whole of Africa may be considered as being under 
the heats of the torrid zone, except at its two ex- 
tremities, along the shores of the Mediterranean, 
and in the neighbourhood of the Cape, where the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 191 

productions of the temperate zone arrive at perfec- 
tion. 

Europe is the temperate region of the earth, 
where all the extremes of temperature are arrest- 
ed and modified by its insular and intersected situa- 
tion. The east of Europe partakes of the charac- 
ter of the Steppes of Asia, but is fitter for cultiva- 
tion ; and, while merchandise can only be transport- 
ed along the high and parched plains of Asia by 
beasts of burden, the rivers of Russia are naviga- 
ble, and afford an easy communication by water. — 
As the mainland of Europe is prolonged to the 
south-west, the land increases in fertility, and in its 
aptitude for agriculture. Poland, Germany, and 
France, have each been the nurse of three great ra- 
ces of men — the Sarmatian, the Gothic, and the 
Celtic ; and the two seas by which Europe is inter- 
sected, the Mediterranean and the Baltic, have been 
the earliest scenes of the Grecian and the Gothic 
tribes, to whom ancient and modern Europe owe 
their civilization and renown ; while Spain, Portu- 
gal, and Britain, the frontiers and outposts of the 
old world towards the west, have spread themselves 
over a new continent, and begun a fresh career of 
glory upon the opposite side of the globe. 

America is separated into two subdivisions, by 
the ocean, which has formed the gulf of Mexico, 
and has broken the continuity of the United States, 
and the Caraccas, by intervening seas, and a num- 
ber of islands. Each nation has obtained that por- 



192 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

tion of the continent of the new world, which was 
most adapted to its previous habits. 

The United States, while they possess the finest 
inland communication in the world, are admirably 
placed for intercourse with the West India Islands, 
and with Europe. The Brazils are well situated 
on the other hand, for extending the influence ac- 
quired by the Portuguese, for becoming the empo- 
rium between Europe and the east ; and for receiv- 
ing into their own soil, and rearing to perfection 
the rich productions of those islands which the 
Portuguese have lost for ever. The United States 
possess every variety of temperature and of soil, 
from the mouths of Missouri and the Mississippi, to 
the alluvial plains of New Orleans ; and from the 
snows and barrenness of the rocky mountains, to 
the perpetual bloom of the Floridas ; while the 
Brazils to the north, and towards the line, approach 
the climate and the luxuriance of Africa ; and in 
their more temperate hills and valleys towards the 
south are able to rear the tea plant and the produc- 
tions of China. The Spaniards, in the new as in 
the old world, and in modern as in ancient times, 
are the great possessors of mines ; and spread them- 
selves along the back of the Andes, as other na- 
tions spread themselves along the valleys of rivers 
and live an aerial people above the clouds, and have 
built their cities in the higher and purer regions of 
the air ; and while the Americans are placed over 
against Europe, and the Brazilians are advantage- 
ously situated in the neighbourhood of Africa, the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 193 

Spaniards, from the ridge of the Andes overlook 
that vast ocean, which will soon open to them a di- 
rect communication with China, and the islands of 
the South Sea, and connect by a new channel, the 
gold and silver of the west, with the rich produc- 
tions of the east. 

RISE OF FALSE RELIGIONS. 

II. The different false religions which have pre- 
vailed in the world, have introduced new divisions, 
and altered the natural boundaries of mountains, 
rivers, and seas, in the classification of nations. — 
These false religions might be divided into those of 
the race of Shem, of the race of Japhet, of the Af- 
ricans, and of the Americans. 

Traces of the true religion remained longest in 
the race of Shem, who did not emigrate to so great 
a distance from the parent seats of mankind. In 
the days of Job, a pure religion had spread over 
Idumea, and along the confines of Arabia. At a 
later period, the Chaldean shepherds were classed 
with the Jews, by the Greeks, as worshippers of 
one only God ; though the Chaldeans of Babylon 
admitted a variety of images ; and before the time 
of Mahomet, the chiefs and poets of Arabia were 
Unitarians, though the multitude of the nation wor- 
shipped the black stone and Hobal, and the three 
hundred and sixty idols at Mecca. When the race 
of Shem lapsed into idolatry, it was idolatry of the 
primitive and simplest texture, the worship of the 
heavenly bodies. Baal or the Lord, who was their 



194 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

principal idol, was the sun, the Lord of the heavens, 
and Astaroth, the female planet, the moon; and 
then like Isis in a secondary sense, the plastic na- 
ture the oriental Venus, the world rising in beauty 
from the waters of chaos. The Caaba, or black 
and meteoric stone of Mecca, like the Diana of the 
Ephesians, was worshipped as having fallen from 
those heavens which they adored. Hobal has been 
well conjectured to be the sun, and the three hun- 
dred and sixty idols to be the genii presiding over 
the days of the year. 

The idolatry of the race of Japhet was more 
complicated : to the worship of the heavenly bo- 
dies, they had added the deification of their de- 
ceased heroes, and had disguised the elements of 
their early worship under a multitude of personifi- 
cations and emblems ; through all the distant and 
numerous branches of the race, the same features 
of mythology were preserved, though with their na- 
tional and characteristic differences. The deities 
of the Celts and the Goths found their parallels 
among the Greeks, Olympus reappears in Valhal- 
lah and Meru ; and the same train of deities peo- 
pled the oak groves of the Celts, the shores of the 
Baltic, the mountains of Greece, and the rivers of 
India. The pastoral tribes of Iran and Touran, of 
all those whose languages are attached to the Indo- 
European stock, maintained with a simpler man- 
ner of life, a simpler worship. The Scythians 
adored the sun, the earliest form of superstition, 
and sacrificed to him the swiftest of horses, as the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 195 

offering most grateful to the swiftest of beings; 
while the Persians, retaining the same worship, ex- 
alted it into the adoration of the universal fire, and 
superadded to it the doctrines of the two principles 
of light and darkness, of good and of evil. The 
Egyptains and Phenicians, though of a different 
race, yet as living in a similar state of society, pos- 
sessed in some degree a similar worship to that of 
the Greeks ; in Egypt, the variety of deities con- 
sisted in the modified forms of Isis and Osiris. — 
Osiris, or the Sun, becomes a new deity, whenever 
he enters a new celestial sign, and the varied ap- 
pearances of the gods are the emblems, of the dif- 
ferent aspects of the celestial luminary towards 
Egypt. Isis is now the moon, and now the earth, 
and in general the passive nature, which reflects the 
light and receives the influences of Osiris ; while 
Hercules and his twelve labours represent the sun 
passing through the twelve signs of zodiac, accom- 
plishing his great revolutions, and fulfilling the year. 
The mythology of the Tyrians and Carthagenians 
approached still nearer the mythology of the Greeks 
and Romans ; the ocean, the patron deity of mercan- 
tile nations ; time, who devours his own children ; 
Baal, who is at once the sun, and the whole visible 
heavens, the Jupiter of the Etruscans, were equally 
worshipped by them all. This polytheism received 
its most complicated and finished structure in In- 
dia. The Indian mythology may be divided into 
three stages, the first previous to the period of their 
writings, but to which references are made as the 



196 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

earliest of all, the simple worship of the elements ; 
the adoration of the heavens, of the sun, of earth, 
air, and water, and of the genii that dwell in them. 
The second creed is that which now prevails in 
Hindostan, the philosophical polytheism of the Bra- 
mins, where all the multitude of deities, and all the 
varieties of existence, are arranged according to 
their emanation from the one and only fountain of 
being, the divine, and universal nature, which modi- 
fies its own illimitable and undefined essence, by 
becoming Bramah, and Vishnoo, and Sevah, the 
creating, the preserving, and the changing power ; 
and from this state, including the three forms of ac- 
tivity, flows out into the production of all the worlds, 
and separates itself into the individual consciousness 
of gods, of men, and of animals, and into all the 
other diversified forms of Maya, or that illusion by 
which that which is infinite, and one, believes itself 
to be many, and finite. The last form is that which 
prevails to the east and the north of India, panthe- 
ism, in its strictest form, accompanied by the adora- 
tion of Boodh, as the great, though mortal, teacher 
of wisdom. The religion that originally prevailed 
in India beyond the Ganges, in China, and Japan, 
and among the simple herdsmen of the north, both 
Moguls and Mandshurs, was the worship of the 
elements, and of the genii that reside in them, and 
which may be called Shamanism, though that name 
is vaguely applied, and often made to designate a 
newer and more complicated creed. To this inar- 
tificial worship was added a belief in the power 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 197 

which their priests or sorcerers possessed over the 
genii, and their knowledge of those secrets which 
prolong life, or avert disease. This rude belief still 
remains among the multitude in the north east of 
Asia ; but it has gradually been forsaken by the 
rich, and even by numbers among the inferior clas- 
ses, for fresh importations of superstition, which 
have reached them in two forms, and from two dif- 
ferent channels ; the religion of the Lamas, and the 
religion of the Bonzes, both of which have sprung 
from India, and from the last of the Indian incar- 
nations, that of Boodhah. 

The superstition of Africa is very peculiar. In 
all nations we must distinguish between its supersti- 
tious practices, and that creed upon which those 
superstitious practices are founded; the former 
keep a much greater hold over the mind of the 
people than the latter, and still continue after the 
creed on which they rested has passed away. The 
misletoe was held in reverence after the druids and 
their consecrated oaks had perished, and talismans 
were confided in by those who passed the aspect of 
the stars unregarded, under which they were form- 
ed. Africa is the country where there is least of a 
religious creed, and most of a superstitious prac- 
tice. Their mythology is slight and undefined, they 
pay some uncertain reverence to the sun and moon, 
to the ocean, to the rocks, or the fountains of cele- 
brated rivers; to the serpent, and to animals of 
prey ; but they have no fixed creed, and in all cir- 
cumstances have small regard to what is future and 
17 



198 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

invisible. They resemble a nation, who, by some 
sudden revolution, had lost their priests and their 
idols, and with them, the theory which gave consis- 
tency and connection to their wild and barbarous 
rites. But the corruptions of superstition, which 
is itself the corruption of religion, remain in full 
force among them. Witchcraft or obea, which 
retains the same name as it did in Judea, when she 
of Endor, who had the spirit of Ob, practised it, 
prevails to a wonderful extent, accompanied with 
all the terror with which the sense of a malignant 
being and the dread of evil invests it ; but what is 
most remarkable, is that of fetichism usurping the 
place of all other superstition. Several tribes of 
the American Indians have indeed their fetiches, 
to which they give the name of their medicine, bor- 
rowing a name from that which appears to them to 
work as by a charm ; and other nations have ima- 
gined, by their choice of some idol, to confer upon 
it, by that very act, some peculiar virtues ; but it is 
strange to behold numberless tribes of men ima- 
gining that their choice, or even their caprice, in- 
vests any casual object with a power over their 
lives or destiny, and confers upon that which was 
before insignificant a sort of African deification. 
When the great objects of nature, as the ocean, or 
destructive animals of prey, the African tiger, or 
the lion are assumed as the national fetiche, the 
reason of the choice is more apparent, still fetichism 
and the universality of the practice marks the low- 
est state of degradation of the human mind. Their 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 199 

strong belief in the safie or spell by which any por- 
tion of writing is supposed to operate as a charm, 
for the protection of the wearer, may in some de- 
gree be traced to the early conquests of the Maho- 
medans over the negro states upon the Niger, and 
the superiority which the unlettered negroes were 
forced to recognise in the men of the book ; a su- 
periority which they doubtless accounted for on the 
principles of their own philosophy, that of magic ; 
but this superstition, such as it is, may be turned to 
good account. 

The American savages, like the Africans, had no 
great or fixed system of superstition ; but rude as 
they were, they were more thoughtful, and had a 
deeper impression of a future state. The spirits of 
their deceased ancestors peopled a world of sha- 
dows ; and the great spirit, mindful of the living 
and the departed, extended his care over both. 
When their tribes assumed the consistence of a 
state, the sun received an established worship at 
Natchez and at Peru; and the mythology of Mexico 
was modelled after the same principles as the Poly- 
theism of Egypt and ancient Europe. It is from 
this enumeration evident that all the superstitions 
of the world are either founded upon the worship 
of the elements, or are interwoven with it. And 
while any of the sciences is sufficient to point out 
the absurdities in which they are involved, the sci- 
ence of chemistry destroys the very existence of 
these elements themselves as simple bodies. 

The difference of religion introduces divisions 



200 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

into the moral world, which vary from those of the 
natural. These new divisions are, Christendom, 
the Mahometan countries, south-eastern Asia, in- 
cluding the country of the Moguls, and the Mand- 
shurs, and central Africa. In these divisions, not 
only the same religion prevails, but a similarity of 
manners, and of philosophical opinion ; and the 
same means of religious conversion must be applied 
to each of these great ranges of country. 

Christendom not only embraces Europe, but is 
spreading over America, and will ultimately scatter 
the seeds of its civilization, languages, and religion, 
over the islands of the ocean, the north of Asia, 
and the southern extremity of Africa ; and this, 
without design or forethought, but in the natural 
course of events, from the expansiveness of its own 
energies, and from the inherent advantages of civi- 
lization over barbarism, wherever they are brought 
into close and frequent contact. In all that variety 
of lands, and remoteness of regions, the same poets 
will hold up the glass to nature, the same examples 
of life will be admired and imitated, the same recol- 
lections of the past, and hopes for the future, will 
be cherished, and one pulse and spirit circling 
through their utmost extremities will infuse one life 
into them all. 

The Mahometans, on the other hand are bound 
together by still closer lies, and from Samarcand 
and Bochara to the Niger, and from Atlas to the 
Spice Islands of the east, their eyes are not more 
certainly directed each day towards Mecca, than 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 201 

their thoughts are directed and narrowed into the 
same circle of prescribed and inveterate ignorance. 
The repetitions of the same thoughts, and the pau- 
city of images among their poets, in vain attempted 
to be concealed by the most violent and accumu- 
lated metaphors, are but a faithful copy of their 
monotonous life, and the fettered range of their 
existence, encumbered alike by the observances of 
antiquity and of superstition ; and man, under the 
yoke of the Arabian impostor, throughout the varie- 
ty of events, remains one and the same, while seas 
intervene without any diversity of his habits, and 
ages elapse without any improvement of his condi- 
tion. 

Again, among the many tribes and tongues that 
people the fertile regions to the east of the Indus, 
the reception of the incarnation of Boodh forms a 
point of re-union amidst the various differences of 
their creeds. The same confusion of matter with 
the principle of evil, and the belief that finite exis- 
tence is inseparably connected with misery, lead the 
sages of these countries to sigh for absorption as 
the only good, and to detach themselves by abstrac- 
tion from life, which in every form is wretched ; 
while the vulgar expect only a temporal heaven, 
which must soon give place to those ever-renewed 
revolutions which have first produced, and then 
destroyed, a succession of new deities and of other 
worlds. And, though different countries eastward 
of the Indus have each their native philosophers, 
and a characteristic and national philosophy, they 
17* 



202 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

possess in common many of the doctrines of the 
Hindoos, which have been everywhere carried by 
the Bonzees in their distant migrations from India. 

Throughout Africa, to the south of the great de- 
sert, the same dark superstitions and magical rites 
prevail ; the same barbarous customs, and the same 
infancy of the understanding. The means the most 
fitted for civilizing one part are those which are 
applicable to all, and a similarity and repetition of 
the same evils everywhere indicate and demand a 
similarity of cure. 

The civilization of each of these four great re- 
gions has proceeded from the same events, and has 
the same character and advancement. All the 
European states partake of the impulse which they 
received from the recovery of classical learning, 
and from, the discovery of America, and of printing. 
The Mahomedan states take the colour of their 
civilization from that of the Caliphat, and of the 
Arabs. The same tales entertain them ; their poe- 
try retains and repeats the same images as it did in 
the verses of the early bards of Arabia and of Per- 
sia, and science has remained fixed in the state in 
which it was left by Avicenna and Averroes. 
Asia beyond the Indus preserves, as we before ob- 
served, that antique mode of life, and measure of 
learning, that belonged to the ancient monarchies 
of Chaldea and Egypt — still worshipping similar 
idols, and reverent of the same high and mystical 
philosophy. And in Africa, the work of civilization 
is scarcely yet begun, or, where it is begun, is soon 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 203 

terminated by the frequency of wars and disasters ; 
so that, everywhere prevails the utmost fertility of 
nature, and everywhere art is wanted, on the part 
of man, to avail himself of her bounty. The world 
is thus divided into four moral quarters — Christen- 
dom, the Mahometan countries, south-eastern Asia, 
and central Africa ; which each require a separate 
consideration. 

NOMINAL CHRISTENDOM. 

III. Christendom naturally divides itself into the 
Protestant states, the Roman Catholic, and those of 
the Greek church. Of these, the Protestants alone 
can be extensively and actively useful, and the 
others must be operated upon rather than be them- 
selves the instruments of conveying good to others. 
Even of the Protestant states, few are sufficient to 
satisfy their own wants, and the burden rests chiefly 
upon Britain of setting every enterprise in motion, 
and of carrying it onward to perfection for the 
conversion of the world. Of the British dominions 
England and Scotland are nearly on a par. Both 
of these can supply their own wants, and afford 
assistance to others ; but even before quitting the 
British isles, we find Ireland in a more destitute 
condition, and more dependent on extrinsic aid than 
many of the kingdoms on the continent. The 
misery of Ireland is of inveterate standing — the 
result of complicated misfortunes ; and no single 
remedy is altogether adequate for its relief. It has 
been imperfectly conquered and imperfectly gov- 



204 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

erned. It has been but half civilized, and is cer- 
tainly not half Christianized. Popery there exists 
in its worst form of slavish and blindfold bigotry ; 
and the errors of the darkest ages remain undis- 
persed by the increasing light which is spreading 
over the rest of Europe. The English seem pur- 
posely to have prolonged the struggle with the Irish, 
by always preserving at once a feeble and a hostile 
attitude, and neither exerting the clemency which 
conciliates nor the force which overpowers. As 
their acquisition of Ireland began by private ad- 
venture, so it has continued on somewhat of the 
same footing, and their dominion has spread rather 
by petty marauding, and harassing inroads, than 
by one great national and recognised subjugation. 
The order of nature has here been reversed ; the 
native has ever been less considered than the for- 
eigner ; the interests of the Irish have always been 
postponed to those of the English, and those of the 
English colonists, in their turn, have been as readily 
sacrificed to a venal and corrupt oligarchy — no 
wonder that an inverted pyramid is not stable. A 
difference of religion has aggravated a difference 
of political interest ; that which, with respect to 
numbers, is a small sect, becomes, by the assistance 
of the bayonet, the established church, and poverty 
the most squalid is ground to the dust, to enrich 
what it believes to be a heresy as fatal to the souls 
as it actually finds it to be to the bodies of men. To 
emancipate the Irish would be but an act of justice ; 
but yet it could not of itself repair the injuries of 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 205 

centuries ; and it would too nearly resemble the 
Roman emancipation, where the filial slave had first 
to change his master before he finally regained his 
liberty. What was saved from the established 
church of Ireland would be devoured by the church 
of Rome. In order to emancipate the Irish from 
vice and ignorance, from the priestcraft of the 
Romish clergy, and from bigotry as absurd as it is 
cruel, Ireland stands in need of the zeal, the energy, 
and the genius of the first reformers. So palpable 
is its darkness, that nothing but the truth being 
brought to bear in every form, upon every class, can 
bring it up to the level of the rest of Europe. A 
general society is much wanted, to encourage the 
preaching of the gospel upon a broad and catholic 
foundation ; which, not confined to a few scattered 
corners, but embracing the country at large, and 
ramified in every direction, should not leave error 
unmolested in any of its retreats, but bring the light 
steadily and vividly to shine upon it. Nor would 
such a society necessarily require a great expendi- 
ture if a rigid economy could once be connected 
with religious undertakings. The best plan would 
consist in employing two sets of labourers, the one 
exhorters, and the other preachers ; the first moving 
in the same sphere as the mass of the people, sup- 
ported at small expense, and disseminating without 
noise, their opinions from house to house, would 
act as guides and pioneers to the second, would 
smooth the way for them, and secure them audi- 
ences, that their preaching might not be in vain. 



206 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

Thirty preachers, and a hundred exhorters, the first 
at a hundred a-year, the second at thirty pounds 
a-year, each, and in the whole, at an expense of 
L.6000 a-year, would cover Ireland entirely in a 
perpetual circuit, and would at once spread the 
truth over the face of the country ; while their se- 
condary aim would be to concentrate their efforts 
for a time upon particular spots, where circum- 
stances might appear most favourable. 

Before proceeding to the British colonies, the 
United States of America present themselves as 
the country which, next to Britain, and indeed the 
only one along with Britain, has the most ample 
resources to spread the knowledge of the truth 
over different countries, and which in its rapidly in- 
creasing greatness, will find aids and supplies larger 
than has yet been possessed by any empire for 
benefitting mankind . They are descended from an- 
cestors who, like the father of the faithful, for the 
sake of truth, went to a land which they knew not ; 
and, like the children of Abraham, as they have 
the truth in their keeping, we may trust that they 
will carry it wide, even to the ends of the earth ; 
they have no need of a dispersion to spread them 
abroad among the nations, for even now, in the in- 
fancy of their origin, their vessels touch upon every 
coast, their inhabitants sojourn in every country, 
and even without their intentional efforts, religion 
grows with their growth, and strengthens with 
their strength ; they carry their altars with them 
into the wilderness, and through them civilization 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 207 

and Christianity will flow on with an ever-enlarging 
stream, till they cover the shores of the Pacific. — 
Even then, the ocean will not terminate their pro- 
gress, but rather open out a passage to the shores of 
eastern Asia, till both the old and the new world 
are united, and flourish beneath the same arts, and 
the same religion. As the British language and line 
is spreading not only over America, but has taken 
root in Africa and Asia, and is doubtless destined by 
Providence to spread far and wide the blessings he 
has confided to Britain, not for her own use only, 
but as a sacred deposit for the world at large, a so- 
ciety that watched over the interests of religion in 
these rising settlements, would forward and ensure 
the advantages which may certainly be expected 
from them ; and by inciting the different denomina- 
tions of christians to supply with ministers the emi- 
grants connected with them, would see converts 
flow in, and churches erected, with a rapidity which 
it would be too sanguine to calculate upon in any 
other field of exertion. 

Upon the continent of Europe, the decaying 
embers of the protestant churches will be soonest 
kindled into a flame ; and by recalling them to their 
first faith, and first fire, bands of missionaries might 
be raised and trained up, renewing the days of the 
preaching of Luther, and the early reformers ; the 
cause of truth would gain ground on every side, 
and the mystical Babylon tremble to its founda- 
tions. Europe naturally divides itself into the north 
and south ; and two great nations, France and Ger- 



208 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

many, afford the best inlets, and supply the fittest 
labourers for further advancement. France has al- 
ways taken the lead among the nations of the south 
of Europe, who, like it, formed of iron and clay, 
are of mixed Roman and Gothic descent, speaking 
kindred corruptions of the same great language, 
and retaining in their writings, as in their monu- 
ments, some broken fragments of the Roman poli- 
cy and civilization. To the north of the Rhine, the 
genius of Germany predominates ; her philoso- 
phers, her oracles, and her poets, are admired and 
imitated. She has imbued the literature of the 
north with her own colouring, and her language 
takes the place of French, as the common medium 
among foreigners of the middle rank. Should a 
great revival of religion take place in Germany, it 
will not only spread as at the reformation, through 
the kindred nations, the Danes, Norwegians, and 
Swedes, but find its way through Poland and Rus- 
sia, and perpetuate the impulse throughout the ex- 
tremities of the north. 

The catholic church is wasting away by a slow, 
though certain decay ; when the cause ceases, the 
effect must cease ; and as the ignorance is dissipa- 
ted, and the political circumstances are undermined, 
which gave it support, the whole edifice of tyranny 
and superstition must at length fall to the ground. — 
Even in countries the most shrouded from the light, 
Spain and Portugal, liberal principles prevail in that 
class which at length gives the tone to all others, 
the young, the intelligent, and the active. The 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 209 

church of Rome has the whole tide of modern 
opinion directed against it, and has nothing to resist 
it but passive ignorance, or blindfold fury ; and the 
precarious aid which it receives from the monarchs 
of Europe, who themselves are struggling against 
the stream, which, unless they act with more wis- 
dom, must sooner or later overwhelm them. For- 
tunately for popery, and unfortunately for mankind, 
there is no Luther, whose voice might awake the 
slumberers, and produce that reform by reason, 
and an appeal to Scripture, which otherwise will be 
produced by the political storms about to desolate 
Europe, if force is the only remedy which popes 
and kings continue to apply to that increasing desire 
of amelioration which is deeply seated in the hearts 
of men, and is urged imperiously by the changes in 
human affairs, and by the development of society. 
It were to be wished that some men of great talents 
upon the continent should devote themselves to the 
work of exposing, in their full extent, the horrors of 
that false church, which has filled Europe with mar- 
tyrs ; so that the earth might no more cover her 
slain, but that the cry of blood might rise to heav- 
en for deliverance. 

The Greek church, which partakes of the same 
corruptions with the Romish, has more the excuse 
of ignorance, and is more open to improvement ; 
the Bible once had free course, throughout the vast 
dominions of the emperor of Russia, and educa- 
tion is encouraged by a monareh who has not much 
to dread for some ages, from the civilization of his 
18 



210 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

subjects : while Greece, when politically free and 
independent, may aspire to higher liberty than she 
dreams of at present ; may shake off the fetters of 
superstition, as well as of slavery, and break to 
pieces that worse and spiritual yoke whose iron en- 
ters the soul. 

MAHOMEDAN COUNTRIES. 

IV. The mention of Greece leads us to her Ma- 
homedan oppressors, and to the second division of 
the moral world ; and though the progress of know- 
ledge has had less effect upon the Mahomedans, or 
rather has had no effect upon them, except in the 
defeats which they have sustained from their more 
enlightened neighbours in the art of war ; yet that 
unbroken front of opposition which they present at 
first view, to whatever tends to the welfare of man. 
has some openings ; and the mass is more permeable 
than might at first be supposed : the principle of 
evil, though strongly intrenched against Christianity, 
is also divided against itself; and the compactness 
of the body is broken by their mutual schisms. 
Persia, by its heresy and its position, divides the or- 
thodox Mussulmans into two ; but while it weakens 
their strength by its adherence to the memory of 
Ali, the followers of Ali themselves are weakened 
by the canker of the old philosophy of the east, 
which has reappeared under a Mahometan disguise, 
in the soofie system. The Wahabees, who have 
attempted a revival of primitive Islamism, and en- 
deavoured to reduce modern alterations to the sim- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 211 

plicity of creed and manners of the time of Maho- 
met, will weaken, either by their success or their 
failure, the cause of their prophet, and thus prepare 
the minds of the Bedouins for new changes. Ano- 
ther cause of weakness in the Mahometan kingdoms 
is their want of consolidation ; they contain within 
themselves the remnant of former creeds, and of 
other nations, the ancient possessors of the soil ; the 
traces of idolatry are still discernible amongst the 
tribes of remote mountains ; the emanative philoso- 
phy of the east is not altogether effaced in the val- 
leys of Lebanon ; and Ahriman, the power of evil, 
to this day receives offerings in the caves of Mount 
Singar. The christians, in all their varieties of 
sects, survive under the haratch, or capitation tax, 
with complete toleration for every thing except the 
possession of money ; and a wide field for cautious 
missionary exertion, undisturbed except by the jeal- 
ousies of christian priests, is opened throughout the 
greatest extent of Mahomed an countries. Even 
where the christians have been almost wasted away, 
as on the coasts of Barbary, the Jews remain, and 
afford scope for exertion, unattended with any ob- 
vious danger. It is a proof, if any proof were need- 
ful, how little has been done for remote countries, 
the profession of physic having been so little used, 
for exploring their recesses, and conveying to them 
under the safeguard of a science esteemed sacred, 
those improvements which would not otherwise be 
introduced. There can be no doubt that medical 
colleges would be sanctioned by the governments of 



212 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



Mahometan countries, especially for christian stu- 
dents ; and that a European teacher might direct 
their attention, not only to the sources of medical 
but of religious information ; and far from shocking 
their prejudices by doing so cautiously, he would 
merit their respect, in countries where religious 
zeal, within certain bounds, is expected, and esteem- 
ed. It is to be feared, however, that the fate of 
Mahometan countries will not be so fortunate as to 
receive those European improvements which would 
enable them to keep their rank as independent na- 
tions, and to resist the encroachments of their less 
stationary neighbours. That violence by which 
they have been founded and maintained will at 
length be the cause of their ruin ; they that take to 
the sword will perish by the sword. They contain 
within themselves the seeds of their own dissolu- 
tion; every contested succession in Persia, and 
every succession is likely to be contested, would 
sever a province from the kingdom, if the sove- 
reign of Russia were enterprising and aggressive. 
A single campaign might conduct a christian army 
to Constantinople, which chiefly remains in the 
hands of the infidels, from the mutual jealousy of 
the European powers ; and though all the rebellions 
of the different Pachas have as yet ended in the 
loss of their heads, and the parts of the Ottoman 
empire, which had been severed for a time, have 
easily reunited ; yet life circulates more languidly 
through the members of that vast bulk ; and the 
Ottomans themselves have a melancholy sense of 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 213 

their past grandeur and present decay. They that 
appeal to the sword, in every sense perish by the 
sword ; the loss of a battle is also the loss of an 
argument, and every defeat thus doubly weakens 
the cause of the Moslem, and gives rise to the most 
fanatical and gloomy forebodings of the loss of their 
empire and religion. 

If the sovereignty of the Turks were destroyed, 
and the Persians crippled, the rest of the Mahome- 
tans would remain a disjointed trunk, without its 
head, and deprived of animation ; the appeal which 
Mahomet made to victory, would then hasten the 
final overthrow of his imposture ; for while other 
sects languish in obscurity, a creed which claims to 
be ever victorious, till the end of the world ap- 
proaches, must either continue to be powerful, or 
be speedily forsaken. 

EASTERN ASIA. 

V. The third division contains one-half of the 
population of the world, nourished in those fertile 
valleys, and alluvial plains, which are formed by the 
rivers that spring from the table land of Central 
Asia ; barren indeed, as it extends towards the 
north, and thinly peopled ; and where its scattered 
tribes still wander about with their flocks, and pre- 
serve the manners of the first patriarchs ; but to the 
south, teeming with population, and in the two great 
races by which it is inhabited, the Hindoos and Chi- 
nese, presenting an ancient, though distinct, and 
somewhat different civilization. The civilization of 
18* 



214 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

the Chinese is political, that of the Hindoo religious. 
The philosophy, as well as the religion of the Chi- 
nese, concur to support a patriarchal despotism, 
and tend to perpetuate the institutions which they 
have received from their ancestors ; while even the 
civil institutions of the Hindoos, if not formed upon, 
are accommodated to the wild notions of their mys- 
tic superstition. The Hindoos are the thinking 
people of Eastern Asia, their doctrines have spread 
to Siberia and Japan, and the new system which 
has been transplanted from Hindostan has oversha- 
dowed and nearly rooted out the native superstitions 
of Central Asia, as well as of China, and has spread 
itself, with the Malay colonies, over the islands of 
the southern ocean. Thus, India has already 
changed the religion of the east, and may well 
change it again. If Christianity had once taken 
possession of India, missionaries in abundance 
would be found among the Hindoos, who would 
carry the gospel along with them to nations who 
already look to India as the fountain from which 
spiritual light has streamed out to them. It has been 
objected, for to what will men not object which is 
contrary to their inclinations ? that the character of 
the Hindoos will not admit of change, and that it is 
impossible to convert them ; but this is an objection 
which is alike refuted by history, by reason, and by 
religion ; the Mohamedan conquerors have left be- 
hind them abundant traces of the possibility of 
changing the faith of the Hindoos, though their 
method of conversion was not likely to be the most 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 215 

successful, as the courage and the enterprise which 
marked the beginning of their dynasties, soon 
changed into effeminacy; the intolerance with which 
they assailed the Hindoos at first, ended in religious 
indifference ; nor was there any interval between 
persecution and acquiescence, which they filled up 
by commending the reasonableness of the unity of 
the Godhead to the conviction of the Hindoos. Still 
Mussulmans abound in India, not merely the de- 
scendants of the Mogul conquerors, but multitudes 
of those who have been won over from the native 
creed. The religion of the Hindoos has frequently 
changed without any foreign impulsion, the early 
worship of the elements has yielded to the com- 
plexity of the Braminical polytheism. Polytheism 
for a time seemed to bend under the pantheism of 
the Budhists, and then by a new revolution regained 
its former ascendency ; even within that polytheism 
itself, rival sects are ever rising and decaying ; and 
the slightest acquaintance, either with the present or 
past state of the Hindoos, may show that the human 
mind with them has not altered its character, or lost 
its desire of change, and that if it is prone to error 
it is also prone to novelty. Reason also might de- 
monstrate, that no forms of opinion can be perpe- 
tual, except those that are founded upon immutable 
truth. All errors have arisen from a combination 
of circumstances ; and when that combination is 
dissolved, and the causes which gave birth to them 
cease to operate, the errors gradually lose their hold 
over the mind, and fall to decay. Again, from reli- 



5J16 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

gion we have the sure word of prophecy, that every 
idol under heaven shall be broken ; and as this has 
been fulfilled with respect to Greece and her idols, 
so it shall soon be fulfilled with respect to India and 
her idols. Polytheism only takes root in that rude 
and imperfect civilization which prevails in the in- 
fancy of nations, when the other faculties are swal- 
lowed up by sense, and where the priesthood repre- 
sent in strange shapes, and fantastic emblems, to the 
eye of the vulgar, the hidden powers of nature ; but 
the mind does not more certainly fall into idolatry 
when dark, uncultivated, and bent by superstitious 
fears, than it certainly emerges from it, when the 
light of instruction breaks in upon it, and education 
lifts it into a higher sphere of activity. Transform 
a people immersed in sense into a nation thoughtful 
and intellectual, and they will cease of themselves 
to be idolaters, and will adapt their creed to the 
change in their moral condition. It is thus, that 
while the vulgar of all countries, unenlightened by 
revelation, have been Polytheists, the philosophers 
of all nations have been Pantheists, remodelling 
the creed of their country to fit their own philoso- 
phical apprehensions ; but Pantheism itself is but 
an intermediate state of the human mind, composed 
half of light and half of darkness, and destined to 
disappear before the full day of truth. As the phi- 
losophy of Bacon and Newton gain ground, juster 
views of the universe will render it impossible that 
the Vedanta doctrine should retain an implicit as- 
sent ; and will prove that the visible world, far 
from being a revelation, or rather an illusion, of the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 217 

Infinite, is only a number of atoms thinly scattered 
throughout vacancy. Education, while it conveys 
the elements of real knowledge, will effectually 
destroy the elements of superstition, change that 
turn of mind on which superstition is founded, and 
occupy the inlets of fresh errors, by filling the mind 
with substantial truths ; while colleges by introduc- 
ing the philosophy of Europe, will gradually spread 
sounder notions of the laws of nature and existence 
and wean the learned of Hindostan from that mon- 
strous system, which is ever confounding the crea- 
ture with the Creator. The modern system of 
education is admirably fitted both for the Hindoos 
and the Chinese, who are well aware of many of 
the advantages of learning, on whom knowledge 
confers both honour and emolument, and with whom 
complete ignorance of letters is more unusual than 
in some countries of Europe. In this state of so- 
ciety, there is much that is ready and prepared for 
missionary exertion ; and if obstacles occur, and 
difficulties suggest themselves, the case is not alto- 
gether different from what it would be in the most 
enlightened countries of the world. It is a common 
complaint among the missionaries w T ho have labour- 
ed among the Hindoos, that their education is limit- 
ed, and often abruptly broken off, by any prospect 
of immediate gain ; an obstacle to instruction not 
confined to Hindostan, but common to England and 
other countries, where the erection of a manufac- 
tory and the employment of children immediately 
deteriorates and shortens, if it does not altogether 



218 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

suspend their instruction; but neither in England 
nor in India can such obstacles arrest the general 
course of improvement, the demand for labour is 
not unlimited, and a large portion of the rising gene- 
ration are left at leisure for the acquisition of com- 
petent information ; besides, this is an evil which 
education itself cures, the more common it becomes, 
the more it will be esteemed one of the necessaries 
of life ; and the demand for those that are but im- 
perfectly instructed, will be superseded by the sup- 
ply of those who have received a complete educa- 
tion. Colleges in India will confer upon a selection 
of those who have received an elementary educa- 
tion such a measure of knowledge as will enable 
the Hindoos again to make advances in science, and 
will place that intellectual race, to whom knowledge 
already owes much, a second time in the front of 
civilization. If a regular system is pursued of afford- 
ing every variety of information to the Hindoos, their 
present system of superstition and philosophy will 
not be able to stand the shock, and will give way on 
all sides with an extent and a rapidity of ruin, pro- 
portioned to the bulk of the pile which is under- 
mined ; and if christians are not negligent of their 
duty, true religion will be introduced with true 
philosophy, and each will take the place of their 
respective counterfeits. The stream of science 
would not only proceed in its usual course, but the 
fountains of English literature being also opened, a 
sudden and copious flood would cover and fertilize 
the shores of India, with a like impetuosity as at 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 219 

the revival of letters ancient knowledge was poured 
in upon Europe, when the great deep of classical 
literature was once broken up. What England has 
been gaining during many centuries, might in a few 
generations be communicated to the Hindoos. 
Prospects the most cheering may be overcast, and 
the progress of improvement at once arrested by 
one of those sudden revolutions, which mock all 
calculation, both in their arrival and in their results ; 
but though in matters merely political, such changes 
in the state may baffle the fairest conjectures, which 
proceed upon the supposition of the continuance of 
national prosperity, yet in the expectation of reli- 
gious improvement, we have more certain ground 
to rest upon. We know not whether God intends 
the stability of particular nations ; but we know 
that he makes all revolutions subservient to the in- 
troduction of his own kingdom, that the appointed 
years of delay are now elapsing, and that the time 
to favour the gentiles is at hand. A great improve- 
ment in the moral condition of Hindostan is there- 
fore certain in the natural course of events, and 
still more certain in the interruption of those events 
by which God breaks in pieces the obstacles to his 
designs ; whether in a political calm or storm, the 
mustard seed which has been sown will become a 
great tree, and spread wide the shadow of its 
branches, and any changes in the body politic will 
ultimately accelerate that great change from dark- 
ness to light, by which Hindostan will become full 
of the knowledge of the Lord. Nothing was ever 



220 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

more beyend all human calculation, than that Eng- 
land should become the mistress of India ; that an 
island thinly peopled with barbarians, the prey of 
every roving pirate, should, after so immense a navi- 
gation, " far as the sea-fowl in a year can fly," sub- 
due the empire of Sandracottus, overcome that 
hostile array that terrified the soldiers of Timour, 
and, with handfuls of men, put myriads to flight. 
That such events did not happen without the divine 
will and guidance, even heathens would acknow- 
ledge ; it is thus that God casts a stain upon all hu- 
man glory — by the weak things overcomes the 
strong, and baffles all the conjectures of human 
prudence. But if Britain thus holds India, it holds 
it by an imperative condition, that of being subser- 
vient to the designs of providence ; and when that 
condition is not complied with, the possession ceases 
along with its infraction. The Portuguese and the 
Dutch have already been our fore-runners ; but the 
one pursued the course of its own cruel bigotry, 
and the other its gain, and neither of them did the 
work of the Lord ; if we follow, instead of avoid- 
ing their example, and neglect to make known so 
great salvation, the empire will be taken from us 
and given to another nation; our conquests will 
pass away like a dream, and the time of our bene- 
fiting India will be closed for ever ; but let us hope 
better things of Britain, and that the nation and the 
government will at length co-operate in spreading 
every blessing in ameliorating the temporal and 
spiritual condition of the Hindoos, in fulfilling to 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 221 

the uttermost the sacred trust reposed, and in secur- 
ing to themselves the perpetual gratitude of India. 

India christianized would again send forth a new 
race of teachers, carrying with them the true doc- 
trines of life and immortality, and showing the way 
of escape from the miseries of life ; and, as the 
Bonzees have penetrated to the remotest extremes 
of Asia, and displaced opinions of long standing, 
which were suited to a simpler state of society, so 
Christianity, considered merely as a system adapted 
to the human mind, will penetrate through all these 
regions, bringing science and the arts in her train, 
and establish upon the ruins of all former opinions, 
a pure worship and a genuine philosophy. The 
trance which has spell- bound the faculties of the 
human mind would be broken, and the stream of 
human improvement would again flow on after its 
long winter. Those beautiful regions, so teeming 
with vegetation, and crowded with life, would ren- 
der their resources to the cause and services of hu- 
manity ; and the eastern sages, who are now trying 
to arrest every motion of the mind, and to fix it upon 
one imaginary object, would have all their faculties 
exercised in the pursuit of truth, and in the contem- 
plation of that object which is indeed divine and 
existing. But the country beyond the Ganges has 
not to wait for missionaries from Hindostan ; the 
work is already well and prosperously begun among 
he Chinese without China ; who, freed from the 
paternal vigilance of the despotism of their country 
are accessible to all efforts to enlighten them, whe- 
19 



222 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

ther by books, by education, or by preaching ; and 
who, in their constant migrations, between China 
and the islands of the Indian Sea, afford an ever- 
continued communication with the mother country? 
and means of penetrating into it, which no caution 
or strictness can guard against. It is thus that the 
region which is most strongly defended against the 
entrance of truth has yet its vulnerable points, and 
the Chinese, who, in their own country, are inacces- 
sible to instruction, are here brought into the best 
situation for their teachers, with their prejudices 
weakened by their distance from home ; while be- 
tween India and China, the American mission 
among the Burmans has succeeded as yet beyond 
reasonable expectation, and affords good hope for 
the future condition of one of the most intelligent 
and energetic races of eastern Asia. 

CENTRAL AFRICA. 

VI. The fourth and least hopeful division is Cen- 
tral Africa, which has ever been cut off from any 
full or salutary influence from the other parts of the 
world, and has only had the misery, which has ever 
prevailed there, heightened by its intercourse with 
more enlightened states; but which yet is the country 
which nature has blessed with the most abundant 
fertility, where life is most vivid, and all productions 
on the largest scale ; and when the years of its suf- 
fering are accomplished, we may expect it will be 
as prolific of good as it has been of what is noxious 
and monstrous, and become the garden of the Lord, 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 223 

flourishing with a luxuriance and profusion unknown 
to other climates. If Africa still remains unknown 
in its remoter regions, and no eye which could mark 
them with intelligence has viewed the wonders 
which it conceals in its interior, still, upon compar- 
ing the journies which the Portuguese have com- 
pleted from sea to sea with the new discoveries 
which have lately been made respecting the kingdom 
of Bornou, and the information recently acquired 
concerning the tribes on the eastern coast, a notion 
not far from the truth might be formed of its general 
features. As usual, by being better known, it has 
lost somewhat of its imaginary grandeur. The true 
position of Bornou has enlarged the formless waste 
of the great Zahara, and circumscribed within nar- 
rower limits, those regions on which the sun and 
the rains of the tropics bestow a boundless fertility; 
while, on the other hand, the eastern and elevated 
table-land, which is on the side of the Indian sea, 
appears, with more evidence, not to possess that 
superabundance of growth which we are apt to as- 
cribe to Central Africa in general, taking our notions 
of it from the rush of vegetation which covers its 
forests, and renders them impervious, along those 
river tracks which are the parts of Africa with 
which we have the most acquaintance — and, instead 
of finding nations more advanced in civilization, 
inhabiting vast cities, resplendent with gold, in the 
interior, and altogether unknown regions, we might 
chance to find that buildings almost disappear, and 
*he last traces of cultivation along with them, and 



224 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

discover nothing but barbarian hordes of the most 
ferocious manners, and whose occupation in the 
neglect of their scattered herds of cattle, was 
slaughter, and enslaving. By what we know of 
Africa, we may suppose its interior to consist of 
three descriptions of regions — the well- watered and 
amazingly fertile, that border upon rivers and inland 
lakes, the seat of the larger nations, where civiliza- 
tion has made some progress ; the second, high and 
isolated mountain tracts, abounding in valleys and 
secure defiles, like those found in the neighbourhood 
of Abyssinia, and where the ancient nations find a 
safe, though confined retreat amidst their broken 
and abrupt fastnesses ; the third, the elevated table- 
land and open mountains, which support the herds 
of the predatory tribes, who spread behind the 
coast of the southern ocean from Abyssinia to 
Caffraria, and who extend their excursions to the 
neighbourhood of the Atlantic. The same circle 
of devastation has been repeated from time imme^ 
morial — one ferocious nation of conquerors suc- 
ceeds another, nor is there any gleam of hope, that 
arises from Africa itself, of a period being put to 
the bloodshed, and the w T retchedness, with which, 
in every age, it has been inundated. But out of the 
very depth of the calamities of Africa, a prospect 
arises of ultimate relief — the slave trade, which 
heightened all the evils to which that devoted coun- 
try is subject, has brought a portion of the African 
race into close contact with men who are civilized. 
Europe and Africa have been dissevered in their 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 225 

fates from each other, but they have met together 
in the colonies of America, and the rising prospects 
of that new world afford the means and the hopes 
for the improvement and civilization of Africa. — 
While the Europeans, from the climate, were pre- 
vented from settling in Africa, and the Africans had 
no means of acquiring the knowledge of Europe, 
an impassable barrier seemed raised between them ; 
but now that both have been brought to inhabit a 
third country, it is comparatively easy to educate 
and train those negroes in America, who will be 
able to introduce into Africa the first rudiments of 
amelioration. The rapidity with which the negroes 
are increasing in America, and the peculiar circum- 
stances in which they are there placed, insure a re- 
turn of numbers of them to their original continent, 
carrying with them the languages, and not unfurnish- 
ed with the acquisitions of Europe. — In a century, 
there will be nearly as many negroes in the United 
States alone as there exist in Africa itself at the 
present moment ; and an emigration, like that which 
is now carrying the Europeans to America, or the 
African slaves to the coast of America, will restore 
the descendants of those slaves to their native 
countries. Africa is the natural resort of the blacks 
that are emancipated by their white masters — pla- 
ced in the new world in an ambiguous situation, be- 
tween the freemen and the slaves, they can scarce- 
ly taste the sweets of liberty, while they are still 
considered as a degraded race, and looked upon 
with an evil eye, as persons who have no ascer- 
19* 



22Q 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



tained situation in society ; but in Africa a new ca- 
reer awaits them ; and, while they are slighted by 
the whites, and every impediment thrown in their 
way, they will be hailed by their kindred race 
across the Atlantic, as the introducers of whatever 
is useful, and the instructors of nascent empires. 
What is wanting is a landing place, some settlement 
to receive them on their first touching the coast, 
from which, in time, they would spread from one 
tribe to another, till they diffused themselves over 
the interior of the continent ; and when that re- 
turning emigration to Africa has once begun, it will 
every year widen and extend, as one race of emi- 
grants will smooth the passage for others, and pre- 
pare a more eager reception for those that are to 
follow. The increase of free blacks is greater than 
either that of the whites or the slaves, in proportion to 
their respective numbers, as they not only increase 
at a similar rate with the other bodies, but receive 
fresh additions from the emancipations, which in- 
crease each year proportionably to the increased 
number of slaves; and, as juster views of the com- 
parative value of free and slave labour gain ground, 
that emancipation will be farther accelerated. But, 
since the prejudices against the negro race will sur- 
vive, as prejudices ever do the occasions which 
gave rise to them, the inducements for the negro 
race to remove to Africa will long continue to ope- 
rate, and, in addition to the advantages which Afri- 
ca itself holds forth, will inevitably impel them to 
repair to their parent seats. It is not only the Uni- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 227 

ted States, however, that contain within themselves 
the means and causes of giving a new form to Afri- 
can Society ; but the empire of the Brazils, which 
is doubly destined to exert a wide influence, not on- 
ly from its containing a number of blacks sufficient 
to excite a greater jealousy in the white population, 
but from its situation over against Africa, and the fa- 
cility and the dispatch of the communication be- 
tween them, and on account of the Brazils becom- 
ing ultimately the inheritors of those conquests 
which the Portuguese made early with so much en- 
terprise in Africa, and which they still feebly retain. 
To the Brazilian descendants of the Portuguese, 
inured to their native tropical climate, the air of 
Africa would not prove so deadly as to Europe- 
ans ; and in their own country they would soon be 
able to raise troops officered by whites, but filled up 
with blacks, to whom neither the climate nor the 
natural barriers of the country would present any 
insurmountable obstacle, and to whom the acquisi- 
tions that the Portuguese have formerly made, 
would afford an already frequented inlet to the re- 
moter regions. It is thus that the way is every- 
where prepared for science and religion visiting 
those dark places of the earth which hitherto have 
denied them an access, and that the natural pro- 
gress of states, in the ordinary expansion of their 
growth, will spread over the earth the seeds of fu- 
ture happiness and knowledge. The slave vessels, 
which were carrying the first wretched victims of 
European avarice across the Atlantic, were uncon* 



228 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

sciously laying the train of the future greatness of 
Africa, and the liberated blacks, like the Israelites 
delivered from Egypt, will return carrying the ark 
of God with them, and the blessings of religion and 
of social life. (I.) 

THE JEWS. 

VII. But though we have gone over the division 
of the world, there still remains one nation, who are 
not confined to anyone division, but who are found 
in them all — the Jews. While they abound in Ma- 
hometan countries, and are numerous in Christen- 
dom, they have scattered themselves far into the in- 
terior of Eastern Asia, are to be found even in Cen- 
tral Africa, and, that no portion of the globe might 
be free from them, they have emigrated to the new 
world. In their case, the laws that modify the 
character of men and nations seem to be suspend- 
ed ; they preserve their own original character in 
every climate, and in every nation, among the fe- 
rocious Moors and the staid and mechanical Chi- 
nese, the same under the Inquisition in Spain as un- 
der the exterminating wars of the Roman empe- 
rors ; and though, by a strange inconsistency, they 
who, when they were under an immediate divine 
government, and witnessing the many miraculous 
interpositions in their behalf, were ever forsaking 
their king and their God, now that they are with- 
out a king, and appear forsaken by God, still ad- 
here obstinately to that law which it is no longer 
possible for them to observe. There is thus some- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 



229 



thing so much beyond the ordinary course of na- 
ture with regard to them, that they disappoint and 
baffle all calculations founded upon usual probabili- 
ties, and remain to this day a peculiar people, which 
cannot be numbered among the nations, stricken 
with a judicial blindness, religiously preserving those 
books which contain their own condemnation. — 
They have everywhere, according to the propheti- 
cal denunciations, become a proverb and a by -word 
in all countries ; and, being despised and reproach- 
ed, their character has sunk almost to deserve these 
reproaches ; and in morals, and in understanding, 
they are, generally speaking, as low as they stand in 
the general opinion. The christians have fallen in- 
to two opposite errors respecting them — either a 
culpable indifference, and a want of that gratitude 
which was due to them for their Father's sake, " of 
whom as concerning the flesh Christ came ;" or if 
any earnestness was felt about their state, it was 
accompanied with a total hopelessness of the effica- 
cy of human means, since they seemed reserved in 
a miraculous manner till some great moral revolu- 
tion, beyond the reach of man to accelerate, should 
occur. But while some have thought the conver- 
sion of the Jews the only work to be neglected in 
the conversion of the world, others, in return, have 
thought it the only work to be attended to ; and, 
mistaking time and occasion for casuality, have 
misinterpreted the words of Paul, as if they assert- 
ed that the Jews were to be the instruments of con- 
verting the world : " If the casting away of them 



230 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

be the reconciling of the world, what shall the re- 
ceiving of them be but life from the dead ?" The 
Jews who rejected Christianity were certainly nei- 
ther the causes nor the instruments of the Gentiles 
receiving Christianity ; but the time of the Jews 
rejecting Christ was the time of the Gentiles being 
received into the Church ; and God took occasion 
from their obstinacy to show mercy to the Gentiles. 
If, then, that season, when judgment was mingled 
with mercy, was yet a season of such abounding 
grace as that the gentiles should be received, what 
shall be the time when judgment is remitted with 
regard to the Jews, but a time of unbounded mer- 
cy, in which the uttermost parts of the earth shall 
be saved, and the fulness of the Gentiles be brought 
in ? This seems the only passage which refers to 
the unconverted Jews; for the other passages, 
which are frequently applied to them, refer to the 
converted Jews, upon whose stock the christians 
were grafted in, and who thus became one people, 
the true descendants of Abraham ; and he was no 
longer a Jew who was one outwardly, but those 
were regarded as the children of Abraham who 
were possessed of the like faith. In all ages the 
words of the prophet have come to pass, " But yet 
in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall 
be eaten as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose sub- 
stance is in them when they cast their leaves ; so 
the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." The 
stem of the Jewish nation has been again and again 
cut down, and revived anew, and existed solely in 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 231 

its stock. In all the judgments that have been in- 
flicted upon them, a remnant has been saved, and a 
remnant only. Of the ten tribes, and the two 
tribes, that were alike carried away captives, the 
latter, and the smaller division of the Jewish nation, 
only returned ; and of them, only a portion. In 
the same way, the remnant who believed in Chris- 
tianity, amidst the multitude of those who rejected 
it, and who were rejected of God in consequence, 
became the stock of the true church, on which the 
gentiles were engrafted. Their history thencefor- 
ward is the history of the church, and in them the 
prophecies are fulfilled. It is upon this stock that 
both the unbelieving gentiles must be together in- 
serted, when the fulness of the time is come, and 
the kingdoms of the earth shall become the king- 
doms of the Lord and of his Christ, and He shall 
reign for ever and ever. 

To speculate concerning the manner in which 
the Jews shall be converted, and to be minutely 
particular as to every circumstance which will ac- 
company their return, is unwarranted alike by rea- 
son and by revelation, and tends to throw discredit 
on the scriptures, by mixing such sick man's dreams 
with the oracles of truth. But every active exer- 
tion in favour of either the temporal or spiritual 
condition of the Jews is truly christian, and is ac- 
cording to the mind of that apostle, who, for the 
sake of his brethren, like Moses, almost wished 
himself cut off from Christ, and blotted from the 
book of life. In the efforts that have been made 



232 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

to convert the Jews, those at the greatest distance 
being considered as the most hopeful, have been the 
most attended to, and societies, sending their agents 
to other countries, have comparatively neglected 
the Jews who are living in their immediate neigh- 
bourhood. But as the Jews are surrounded in 
christian countries by those who have it most in 
their power to know their characters, and their pre- 
judices, to avail themselves of every favourable op- 
portunity to conciliate their good-will, and to im- 
prove their temporal condition ; the best missiona- 
ries are those who live in the same town with them, 
and who, without either studying or travelling, are 
best qualified for making an impression upon them. 
One great cause of the prejudice of the Jews is 
pronounced to be their attachment to the reveries 
of their rabbins — the silliest, and most monstrous 
of all human productions ; but as a considerable 
portion of those who think become infidels, either 
attached to the system of Spinosa, or followers of 
the prevalent philosophy of the day, it is apparent 
that the superstition of the Jews, obstinate as it is, 
is chiefly founded on ignorance, and a blind adhe- 
rence to the traditions of their fathers ; and, above 
all, in an enmity to Christianity, which causes them 
to prefer any opinions to the acknowledging Jesus 
to be the Messiah. Education would remove one 
part of the obstacles to their conversion, and kind- 
ness and acquaintance on the part of christians 
would diminish the misunderstanding and dislike 
which the Jews bear to the descendants of those by 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 233 

whom they have been so cruelly persecuted. It 
would also be extremely desirable that some learn- 
ed men should devote their attention to exhibit to 
the Jews, under every shape, the futility of their 
rabbinical traditions and writings, and the insupera- 
ble difficulties under which the Mosaic dispensation 
labours, unless it be acknowledged that it is fulfilled 
and terminated in Christianity. If the Jews can 
once be brought to reflect, it is impossible but they 
must feel how untenable is their adherence to the 
law of Moses — a dispensation which was strictly 
local, and which their dispersion among the gentiles 
has itself abrogated and rendered of none effect. 
Christian kings and states have also a part to per- 
form, and are morally bound to favour Jewish con- 
verts, as they have had their full share in blinding 
and hardening the Jews, and in doing all that laws 
and regulations could effect, for keeping them a de- 
graded caste, and for perpetuating the prejudices of 
their subjects against them ; and, as contempt and 
prejudice are reciprocal, for confirming also the 
prejudices of the Jews against the christians. 

CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 

VIII. There is one good omen for the future 
success of Christianity, and its universal diffusion, 
in the present existence of the Jews throughout 
every climate under heaven. When the whole 
world, with the exception of Judea, had lost the 
worship of the one only God, there seemed little 
prospect, in human probability, of that pure wor- 
20 



234 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

ship being restored in all the countries of the earth ? 
and less, that it would be restored by Jews, whose 
very dispensation was confined to the land of Judea ; 
but so it is, the unity of the deity has become, in 
one sense, universally recognised, by the Jews be- 
ing universally dispersed : and in countries, in which 
Christianity has failed to establish itself, the Jews 
remain perpetual witnesses of the unity of the 
Godhead. That the knowledge of the true God 
should, in this way, be scattered and sown over 
the whole earth, like seed scattered by the winds, 
gives hope that, in after-ages, there will be a better 
seed-time, and a more abundant harvest; since 
Christianity, by the natural order of events, and its 
superiority of advanced civilization, will naturally 
spread over the world. Its supremacy in know- 
ledge, its improvements in life, and its opinions in 
religion, are alike adapted to a higher state of civi- 
lization. It is impossible that this pre-eminence 
which Europe has attained, can for ever remain 
pent up by those mutual jealousies which have re- 
tarded the developement of the forces of its states : 
and the time must come, when the torrent which 
has been so long resisted, will burst with accumu- 
lated strength, and precipitate itself over all the 
adjoining countries. Europe, even in those states 
where the government is worst, and information at 
the lowest ebb, is wonderfully increasing in popu- 
lation, and in knowledge, in the arts of war and of 
peace, in agriculture and in commerce ; and the 
new states of America are entering upon a fresh 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELTGION. 235 

career of advancement, and, while they are doub- 
ling their own resources in the rapidity of their 
progress, they are about to communicate a new 
impulse to European enterprise. The reverse is 
the prospect of the countries that are not Christian : 
instead of hope and enterprise, there are apathy and 
inertness, and instead of growth, there is a slow 
but certain decay. In the Mahometan states, so- 
ciety is turned backwards, and retracing its steps ; 
villages are brought under the plough, and the field 
that was once cultivated is abandoned to the wan- 
dering herdsmen, and the tent is pitched beside the 
broken pillars of the palace. Of philosophers there 
are only to be found the tombs, and whatever learn- 
ing the Moslems had, is retained, not in schools, but 
in libraries. It is Christian States alone that sus- 
pend the fate of the Mahomedan kingdoms, iand 
the Turks subsist but at the mercy of those whom 
they have so often conquered. The timid policy 
of Austria communicates her own inertness to the 
policy of other nations ; and, while she crushes- 
liberty in the west, supports despotism in the east ; 
but no obstacle can long resist which is ever worn 
away by the current, and brief must the duration 
of those powers be, which oppose themselves to 
the stream of events, and rest only on foundations 
which are fast mouldering into dust. Weak are the 
allies of that government which places its reliance 
in ignorance and inactivity, to oppose the change^ 
of opinion and desire of improvement in men's 



236 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

minds already half emancipated, and who feel their 
fetters worn off and falling away. 

ENGLAND THE CENTRE OF ACTION. 

IX. England is the fountain from which the wa- 
ters of the sanctuary are beginning to flow, and on 
every side to direct their purifying streams. It has 
advanced before all the rest in all the advantages 
of modern times, and its influence is felt by all 
other nations, as having trodden before them that 
career of prosperity in which they wish to follow, 
and to imitate her as the example of whatever is 
happy and glorious, exhibiting, in modern times, the 
perfection which Greece attained in the ancient — 
uniting success in arms and letters, and possessing a 
government adapted to the spirit of a people ever 
rising with reverses, and deriving new strength 
from the trials to which they have been exposed. 
England is the precursor in all the improvements 
which are peculiar to the times we live in ; — strong 
in all the influences which give a healthful action to 
modern society — upborne by those impulses in the 
highest degree which are hastening the develop- 
ment of modern civilization in all the varieties of 
improvement, and which mark an advanced period 
of the history of man. Liberty, which gives health 
and strength to all other pre-eminences, is here on 
a more solid footing — established by time, inter- 
woven with all our usages, and all our opinions, 
and forming the most precious part of our inheri- 
tance ; while, in other countries, where it partially 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 237 

exists, it is still debateable — a source of contest 
and distrust, supported by one party, but undermin- 
ed by another. Here, the government and the 
subject alike have a vested interest in freedom, and 
would equally vindicate the substance of it, though 
they might dispute the limits. 

The universal diffusion of elementary education, 
a fresh and nearly-allied source of prosperity, though 
till lately it has been much neglected in the south, 
has yet been pursued to an extent in the north of 
Britain which no country has ever yet surpassed : 
and, from the attention which is now given to edu- 
cation through every part of the island, we may 
trust that its knowledge will be equal to its liberty, 
and that both will perpetuate each other to the end 
of time ; while, in the press, another great instru- 
ment of improvement, England possesses a moral 
power unknown to the ancient world, and superior, 
if its employment were equal to its energy, to the 
sum of all their advantages taken together. Volun- 
tary association, as a promoting influence of moral 
improvement, belongs peculiarly to England, which 
owes so much to the efforts of individuals, and by- 
means of which private men, by their union and 
concert, may become public benefactors, may exe- 
cute the works which elsewhere would demand the 
force of kings, can excite and concentrate the spirit 
of communities, and make the ends of the earth 
better and happier by their exertions. Besides. 
Britain possesses wealth which all its innumerable 
existing outlets cannot sufficientlv diffuse ; which, 
20* 



238 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

after accomplishing whatever can be desired, still 
leaves an excess of activity and superfluity behind 
it, which spends itself in romantic enterprises and 
chimerical pursuits, and is at the service of the 
most distant nations, and the most hopeless adven- 
tures. Along with this wealth, there is a benevo- 
lence which embraces every claim of humanity, 
adapts itself to the succour of every form of misery, 
and anticipates, by its over-careful aid, even uncer- 
tain misfortunes. Add to this, that the British are 
comparatively, and popularly speaking, a highly 
religious and thoughtful nation, whose standard 
works have imbued the language with a loftier mo- 
rality, and a more frequent regard to the sanctions 
of duty, and the eternal consequences of men's 
actions and the rewards and punishments of a fu- 
ture and unending life, than is found in the literature 
of most, perhaps of any other nation. These are 
the elements of which are composed the worth of 
individual and the greatness of national character, 
and which give ardour and effect to purposes which 
contemplate remote good, and the interests of hu- 
manity in general. These dispose to great and 
generous attempts ; and the commerce of Britain, 
which connects her with the remotest ends of the 
earth, and draws her into close and repeated inter- 
course with every nation, makes these attempts 
practicable, and carries them into easy execution ; 
while her colonies bring her into near neighbour- 
hood with the other quarters of the world, reflect 
an image of her greatness, and re-produce her ge- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 239 

nerous designs beneath the sun of the tropic, or in 
another hemisphere. 

IMPORTANCE OF SYSTEM. 

X. The first requisite in benevolent operations, 
as in all other undertakings, is system ; a fixedness 
of design, and a steady adaptation of the means to 
the end. Opposite to that of system, is the pursu- 
ing of what are called openings, or the being caught 
with every change of circumstances, and drawn by 
every chance of success into new paths of pursuit, 
having no connection with each other, and leading 
to remote terminations. Every step gained in a 
system strengthens, every step gained without it 
weakens. The first object acquired leads to the 
possession of the second, and that to the attainment 
of the third, if all the objects to be attained are 
originally chosen with reference to the accomplish- 
ment of a plan. Every new object, where there is 
no system, divides the already scattered forces, and 
success, if pursued, might dissipate them entirely, 
and leave but the vain pleasure of having a number 
of defenceless stations, each calling for assistance, 
and all calling in vain, while the society only retain- 
ed the empty boast of an extended line of opera- 
tions, and of being equally helpless and inefficient 
in every quarter of the globe. On a system, each 
part strengthens the other ; the line of communica- 
tion is kept up entire ; as each point is gained the 
whole advances ; they are all in movement towards 



240 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

the same position, and they rest upon the same cen- 
tre of support. 

ECONOMY. 

XL Economy is the second requisite of success, 
which is not only productive of power but of wis- 
dom. Riches, without it, are the art and means of 
purchasing speedy disappointment ; they appear to 
shorten the road to success, yet fail in leading to its 
attainment. But economy implies continual com- 
parison and design, is intently employed in seeking 
the simplest and most efficacious instruments, avoids 
difficulties by forethought, and overcomes obstacles 
less by force than by intelligence, attacks only 
points that are vulnerable, and reserves itself for a 
necessary and decisive crisis, while wealth, with 
bandaged eyes, grasps at all objects indiscrimi- 
nately, and attempts, by squandering itself away, 
to create those instruments which it might soon 
find by the assistance of thought and time. Eco- 
nomy, however, is a word of no pleasant sound to 
many benevolent persons. " That the world itself 
is not to be compared with the saving of one im- 
mortal soul," is an observation, of which the truth 
is more obvious than the application which they 
make of it. With them the infinite and superna- 
tural character of the subjects sets aside the max- 
ims of wordly prudence ; and, if money be spent 
in promoting the good cause, it matters not in what 
manner. Those, on the other hand, who wish to 
avoid the extreme of profuseness, mistake the coun- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 241 

terfeit for the reality, parsimony for economy, and 
delight in those labourers who may be had gratis, 
not reflecting, that the labour which costs nothing 
is generally worth nothing, and that, where agents 
combine two employments, they are bound to de- 
vote their chief time and talents to the one for 
which they are paid. But economy is quite consis- 
tent with a liberal expenditure, and indeed cannot 
subsist without it. It is by preferring quality to 
quantity, efficiency to numbers, a few capable agents 
at a higher salary, to a greater number of indifferent 
ones at a lower, that work is done more rapidly and 
more perfectly, and at a smaller cost. Economy 
aids in a double degree ; it not only makes the 
money received of more value, but it opens other 
sources of revenue, and is the chief recommenda- 
tion of a voluntary society ; for all must be anxious to 
contribute in preference to those stewards who turn 
five talents into ten, and who give additional worth 
to every sum with which they are intrusted, by 
stamping it with the value of their thought and care- 
fulness. A society that is more anxious to spend 
well than to spend much, would not be reduced to 
continual supplications and cries of distress, or to 
plead, as their chief claim upon the bounty of the 
public, how greatly they were in debt ; their own 
works should speak for them. If a plan were to 
be thought of for drying up the springs of public 
liberality, a better method could not be devised than 
to be ever clamorous for further donations, and to 
be forgetful and silent respecting those already re 



242 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

ceived. On the other hand, to judge no one as to 
the extent of a free gift, but to receive whatever is 
given, without attempting to measure the abilities 
of the donor, or to put a farther tax upon his good 
will, and to show gratitude for the past, unmixed 
with expectation for the future, is the certain way 
to increase the liberality of contributors, by leaving 
that pleasure, which providence has attached to 
giving, unalloyed with the fear that every compli- 
ance will only excite new and larger demands. 

SUPERINTENDENCE. 

XII. One great source of economy would arise 
from sending superintend ants into foreign countries 
instead of active labourers. As this would dimin- 
ish the numbers that are to be sent out, so it would 
afford a greater selection, and would prevent the 
mistake of receiving all who offer themselves, and 
of transporting, at considerable expense, those to 
different countries, who, afterwards prove hindran- 
ces instead of aids. Men of ascertained talents 
and piety would alone be chosen, instead of a mis- 
cellaneous conscription, or a number of raw volun- 
teers ; and, as these men would be employed in the 
sphere most suited to foreigners, in a strange coun- 
try, free from all labours that were not strictly ne- 
cessary, there would be a saving of time, of expen- 
diture, and of exertion ; and, what is of still more 
consequence, a saving of life, of acquirements, and 
of experience ; while both the conductors of, and 
the contributors to missions, admitting the principle* 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. *243 

that the seed-time must precede the harvest, would, 
in the first instance, look for, and expect a progress 
of preparation, rather than the results of success, 
and would not be disappointed at not seeing the 
building ascending, before the foundation was laid. 
The grand object of every society must be to train 
up native preachers ; and they who best accomplish 
this have best discharged the work assigned to them. 
Here men of large information, and of noble and 
disinterested benevolence, would find a wide field 
on which to operate, both at home and abroad ; 
they would become the temporal benefactors as 
well as the spiritual enlighteners of the country to 
which they had expatriated themselves ; introduc- 
ing, as preparatory to the great changes in morals, 
and in religion, a change in the arts of life, and in 
the attainments of knowledge ; promoting those 
improvements which were obvious to the senses, 
as a pledge of those benefits which were more re- 
mote and less visible ; and ranking with the first 
civilizers of nations in the variety of benefits which 
they conferred. At home all would be able to ap- 
preciate some part of their labours — the religious, 
their care of souls, the merely benevolent, their 
care of the body ; and all might understand the 
excellency of a system which provided for every 
want of humanity, and increased the comforts of 
this life while it brightened the prospects of another. 
Another office which the superintendants would 
have to fulfil, would be furnishing reports, the re- 
verse of those now furnished, to the public ; which 



244 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

are the models of whatever is to be avoided, — long, 
indistinct, and where the reader is bewildered and 
disappointed when in search of any tangible or 
useful information. It is by vivid pictures of a 
distant country that the interest in it alone can be 
kept up, and that all its wants are brought before 
the eye and impressed upon the imagination ; for 
the abstract belief of misery will afford but a cold 
conviction and sluggish co-operation ; and it is upon 
the writer's powers of feeling, and expressing deeply 
all that he feels, that the aid furnished from a dis- 
tance must depend. It is not only, however, vivid 
description, but a variety of important facts, that 
his situation abroad would supply a writer of talents 
with. His attention would be alive to every possi- 
ble opening, by which light could break into the 
native mind — their opinions, their prejudices, their 
literature, in all its range, and their civil condition, 
through every variety of station, would be present- 
ed and surveyed, in order that no access might re- 
main unoccupied, by which truth might gain an en- 
trance, and no instrument lie disused, by which the 
inert mass of ignorance, and inveterate prejudice 
might be roused, but that every kindly feeling might 
be cherished into esteem, and every dawn of in- 
telligence might increase into perfect knowledge. 
This, then, is the double task required — to present 
an image ever-varied, and ever-vivid, of foreign 
countries to England, and again, to give life and 
form to the knowledge of England in other lands. 
This is the exchange of communication by which 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 245 

knowledge and religion would make their mutual 
way through countries long buried in superstition 
and ignorance, and would secure to each other suc- 
cess and perpetuity. 

NATIVE AGENCY. 

XIII. The employment of native agents under 
the superintendence of Europeans more than makes 
up for the decrease of the number of foreign la- 
bourers ; and while it saves more than could have 
been believed in point of expenditure, it increases 
the efficiency of the mission in perhaps a still higher 
degree, provided that the education of the natives 
approach the acquirements of the European agents 
whose place they supply. The very rearing of na- 
tive agents is preparatory of native hearers ; the 
progress of education is ever spreading a wider 
circle of information, prejudices' are losing their 
hold, and a greater capacity is acquired of under- 
standing what is heard. On every side the work is 
in commencement; the language is moulded to 
new thoughts, the hearers are prepared for new in- 
structions, and the teachers have an opening which 
is ever widening as their power of filling it enlarges. 
When the new opinions have taken root in the soil, 
and have within them the principle of growth, their 
increase is not limited to foreign additions, but ex- 
pands with native strength, and awaits but the lapse 
of years, and the changes which education and in- 
creasing conviction are producing, to obtain a com- 
plete victory over those creeds which maintain less 
21 



246 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

and less dominion over the mind. Even those who 
have failed to pursue the object for which they 
were educated, and who, though educated, may 
still remain, in some degree, attached to the super- 
stitious belief of their ancestors, serve the ultimate 
purpose of the mission, though in a different way. 
They are obliged to modify the errors, and to intro- 
duce a diversity and disputes into the creed which 
they still hold by, and thus new errors are produced, 
which, seeking to occupy the ground which the old 
are losing, add to the confusion and dismay of the 
ancient worship, and spread new rents through the 
ruin they attempt to repair. Others, who are in- 
different to the religion, may be zealously attached 
to the science of Europe, and from another and 
unsuspected quarter begin, without being conscious 
of it, to produce a revolution in the minds of their 
countrymen; and thus, furnishing new arms by 
which error may be dislodged from its strong-holds, 
may prepare a way for religious truth to accompany 
science when least expected or desired. When 
once the impulse is begun, and nations that have 
long been stationary again advance in the path of 
civilization, numbers of causes will contribute to 
accelerate their course ; a degree of information 
will spread through every rank and gradation of 
society, and the appetite for knowledge will increase 
with each accession it receives. Thus every dis- 
covery in Europe is connected with the ultimate 
enlightening of the earth at large, and every truth 
established, is one added to the host of assailants 



XN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 



24* 



which will break down the barriers that have been 
hitherto opposed to human improvement and hap- 
piness, 

EDUCATION. 

XIV. But to furnish native agents a system of 
education is the next requisite, and which should 
be the very first object in every missionary under- 
taking. Upon the extent on which it is planned, 
and upon the success with which it is carried on, 
the failure or accomplishment of the object, as a 
whole, necessarily depends ; any success that is 
gained without it must be local, and partial, and 
brief, and uncertain, as well as limited ; for educa- 
tion alone can provide for an increasing demand 
for future contingencies, and a perpetual supply. 
In education, both the elementary instruction which 
may cover the country in general, and the higher 
learning for those who are to be the teachers of 
others, either as schoolmasters or preachers, should 
be planned on such a model as will admit of con- 
tinually enlarging its extent and improving its me- 
thod ; but as the maintaining directly the elemen- 
tary education of a whole country would be an ex- 
pense too burdensome to undertake, it is only indi- 
rectly that it can be attempted, by educating school- 
masters who may gradually spread over whole na- 
tions the same method of teaching in which they 
themselves have been taught. It is therefore evi- 
dent, that normal schools and colleges are the two 
•orts of institutions which are necessary instruments 



248 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



for evangelizing a country; the first to providt 
schoolmasters, and the second to provide preachers. 
— who ought to be a selection from those educated 
merely as teachers, set apart on account of their 
talents and piety. The normal schools would thus 
serve as a nursery for colleges, and the education 
received at the first would shorten and facilitate 
the instruction acquired at the latter ; and as the 
students of both would be eminent for their good 
conduct and capacity, and selected upon these 
accounts from the schools already existing in the 
country, the care and expenditure bestowed upon 
them would, like seed committed to a chosen soil, 
bring forth some an hundred, some sixty, some 
thirty-fold. Nor, as was stated before, would the 
failure of many of them as religious converts, be a 
hindrance to their usefulness to others ; they would 
do the work of the mission in a different capacity ; 
and, while a sufficiency might be counted upon to 
be engaged directly in preaching the gospel, num- 
bers of others unsolicited, and unsalaried, and often 
unconsciously, would be undermining the fabric of 
superstition, and diffusing that good-will, and good 
opinion, that must ever be felt towards early instruc- 
tors, if there be no misconduct on their part. A 
new generation would spring up, even when there 
was no outward change, with minds in which the 
fables of their country inspired less reverence ; 
whom their idols ceased to overawe, and who be- 
gan to question the rites of their country, and to be 
alive to the devices of their priesthood, till the hold 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 249 

which superstition had upon them was altogether 
relaxed, and they threw aside their idolatrous cere- 
monies with general consent, as a worn-out and 
useless incumbrance. While the schools would be 
increasing in power by every new improvement 
that they received in Europe, and education would 
become more perfect, and more rapid, the languages, 
being made the vehicles of sound information, would 
ever be affording instruction of a higher order, the 
demand for learning would increase the attainments 
of the higher, and descend, at the same time, to the 
lower classes of the community ; the difficulties 
which now exist would be counteracted, and the 
obstacles would be worn away in the opposition 
which they gave. 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

XV. Though a universal^ language may be an im- 
practicable scheme, when founded upon abstract 
principles, and altogether fictitious in its construc- 
tion, yet there is some probability that one language 
may become universal, as the learned medium by 
which the thinkers of all nations may obtain pos- 
session of every new discovery', and transfer them 
into their own tongues. The number of languages 
is greater in a given space, in proportion as the con- 
dition of society approaches the savage state, and 
diminishes as mankind advance in civilization. — 
, Each tribe of savages form a jargon for them- 
selves ; the poorer the language the more easily it 
is altered, the more readily its character is effaced, 
21* 



250 



ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 



and its original materials concealed under new ad- 
ditions ; but as communities increase with civiliza- 
tion, so languages extend with communities ; and 
as conquest gives them extent, so writing gives them 
permanence and fixity. Religion has added to that 
permanence, by conferring upon sacred writings a 
perpetuity of interest, and making them, in some 
degree, the standard of all classes, of all conditions, 
and of all ages. This permanence and extent of 
language is consolidated by an established litera- 
ture and an established dominion ; and the diver- 
sity of dialects disappears with the facility of com- 
munication, and a community of interests and in- 
tercourse. 

But empire is ever proceeding on a larger scale ; 
the community of nations embraces a wider circle ; 
and a few languages, favoured by conquest, com- 
merce, and religion, are spreading themselves over 
the greatest portion of the earth, so that the chances 
are increased that one of them should serve as the 
medium of communication with all the rest, and 
act as the interpreter between all the nations of the 
world. It may be seen, from the extent to which 
even a dead language is understood, and how far it 
has served as the vehicle of thought, what influence, 
and what facilities, a living language might possess, 
if otherwise equally favoured by circumstances, in 
diffusing truth, and in opening an intercourse 
throughout the family of man. A dead language 
has two great disadvantages ; it has lost the princi- 
ple of growth and increase ; the thoughts expressed 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 251 

ia it are but the echoes of former thoughts, con- 
ceived at a distant period of time ; but the world 
goes on, its affairs change their face, and whatever 
is stationary must end in being retrograde. Again, 
a dead language has not the same easiness of being 
acquired that a living one possesses, which can be 
caught in every tone and accent from the lips of a 
speaker, and be understood by the accompanying 
comment of every look, gesture, and present cir- 
cumstance. The customs with which a dead lan- 
guage is interwoven are obsolete, and it refers to a 
different period of sentiments, and to another age 
of the mind; while a living language, if it be the 
language of a commercial people, may have those 
who speak it as their native tongue in every part of 
the globe ; it may enter into the daily business of 
life ; its institutions, which have given it its cast and 
character, may be the models which all study and 
wish to imitate ; and it may contain in its literature 
whatever affects the higher interests of humanity 
— rich in its own native stores, and yet multifarious 
in its foreign acquisitions, which it has collected 
from every part and region under heaven. The 
English language possesses many of these advanta- 
ges, and, from the situation of England, it might, 
easily acquire the rest. By its colonies it might 
cover one-fifth of the globe, and by its commerce 
it spreads over the whole ; its inhabitants are dis- 
persed by the variety of th, ir pursuits, and its in 
stitutions excite and deserve the regard of all other 
nations. 



252 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

A language, to become universal, requires to be 
a living language ; the continual movement and 
progress -of society, as was before observed, places 
a wide difference, in the course of years, between 
the nations of antiquity and of later times ; man- 
ners change, thoughts move in a different circle, 
governments depend upon other principles, and the 
frame-work of society has been taken down and re- 
modelled; the dead languages cannot serve as the 
receptacles and vehicles of new information, and 
they remain fixed and limited, with the acquire- 
ments of men of other days, who are gradually di- 
minishing in their influence, as we recede from 
them, in the lapse of generations and centuries. — 
It is thus that the Latin language has been decreas- 
ing in importance by modern discoveries, and be- 
comes less and less the medium of scientific inter- 
course, or useful information. The Arabic lan- 
guage, which spread with the conquest of the Arabs 
over so wide and extensive a territory, to the rising 
and setting of the sun, fell from its high supremacy, 
with the fall of the Caliphs, and declines with the 
decline of the Mahometan religion ; conveying no 
new information, and not spoken in its ancient pu- 
rity, but become in some measure a dead language, 
though one of the most diffused, it offers no com- 
petition with other languages, which are rising in 
their fortunes and extending their influence. The 
Chinese language, if considered as a written and 
not as a spoken language, embraces a still larger 
population, and is certainly not upon the decline> 






IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 253 

but rather increasing, as the Chinese empire spreads 
its authority more widely over the middle regions 
of Asia, and as Chinese colonies are scattered more 
extensively over the Islands of the southern ocean ; 
but then, it is a language adapted only to a rude pe- 
riod, complicated and unwieldly in the structure of 
its symbols, and in truth not properly one language, 
but the connection of a number of barbarous and 
cognatt, iialects, extremely imperfect when spoken, 
and only unitcJ and having their deficiencies sup- 
plied by all of thjm being expressed in the same 
complicated system of written characters. It is 
apparent, that when the imperfect knowledge of 
the Chinese yields to the science of Europe, the lan- 
guage in which it is conveyed will receive a shock, 
and must be greatly modified, to be suitable to 
higher advances, and a greater variety of informa- 
tion. Thus the two most extensive languages iii 
Asia, which can be considered as living tongues — 
for the Sanscrit, notwithstanding its relation to the 
dialects spoken in India, and its cultivation by the 
Bramins, must be considered as having long been a 
dead language — are linked to a rude period of civili- 
zation, and are likely to be curtailed rather than ad- 
vanced, in their sphere of influence, by the introduc- 
tion of European improvements, and by a new era 
of progressive knowledge in Asia. The European 
languages alone as connected with the progress of 
European genius and discovery, and the universal 
diffusion of modern science, have a prospect of being 
universally diffused, and it only remains to examine 



•254 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

which of these languages possesses the greatest ad- 
vantages, for being the medium by which knowledge- 
can be most rapidly and easily conveyed, which 
may be the universal receptacle of past information, 
and the speediest vehicle of new discovery. The 
French language, at one time, had the most bril- 
liant hopes of being spoken as the inter-national 
tongue of Europe. But as Montaigne observed, 
its perpetuity, and its success, depended upon 
two circumstances — the celebrity of its writers, 
and the fortunes of its arms. It is singular that, 
while France, fruitful in literature, was possessed 
of two springs of originality — the romances of 
the north, and the songs of the south, each rising 
at the same time, each different, and each alike 
original, a profuseness of novelty which no other 
nation can boast of, yet that both these sources 
should fail, or rather be entirely neglected, and 
that a new literature should be formed upon the 
imitation of the classic models. While the classic 
writers obtained an exclusive admiration, the French 
writers, as those who most strictly adhered to the 
classic rules of art, obtained a full share of that 
admiration ; but now that original genius and nation- 
ality are sought in every literature, the French wri- 
ters have proportionally declined ; and, as the arms 
of France have not only been unsuccessful, but 
other powers are rising up into new strength, the 
French have both absolutely and relatively declined 
in importance. Their literature, and their predo- 
minance, being both on the wane, their language 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 255 

must gradually follow the fortunes of the powers 
which influenced its destiny, and will never surpass, 
and must gradually recede from the limits which it 
formerly reached. The German literature has 
3prung up since, and has gradually been dislodging 
the French from the north of Europe, being the 
very reverse of modern French literature, both in 
its excellencies and defects — full of originality, but 
formed upon no system, and scarcely even a plan, 
unless the caprice of each writer, or his shadowy 
theory, may be dignified with the name of a sys- 
tem ; and while the French language abounds in 
masterpieces, formed exactly according to the 
rules of perfect art, and which want nothing but 
life and movement, the German literature abounds 
in fragments and essays, each with a peculiar fla- 
vour of the soil, but which seem to have wanted a 
warmer sun to have ripened them to maturity. 
\gain, the Germans have not that predominance in 
politics, or that established, or unquestioned reputa- 
tion in literature, nor has their country that favour- 
able position which could give weight and extent 
to their language over the world at large. Their 
influence is confined to the north of Europe. But 
it vanishes in the other divisions of the globe ; and 
even in the north of Europe, the growth of the 
empire and literature of Russia, though at first fa- 
vourable to Germany, will gradually operate to its 
disadvantage, and may even overwhelm its rising 
energies by the pressure of its immediate neigh- 
bourhood. If width of empire alone could confer 



.256 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

a greater extent upon language, the Russian tongue 
might become the most general medium of inter- 
course, and undoubtedly it will be prevalent far 
and wide, both in Europe and Asia ; but the ground 
it must gain is so great, before it can reach the level 
of present improvement, and the condition of its 
society so unpropitious, and its want of many ad- 
vantages which other tongues possess so great a 
counterpoise, that even it has not much chance of 
becoming the language most generally diffused, or 
of spreading far beyond the range of the Russian 
cannon. The Spanish language, coupled with the 
Portuguese, which may be considered as a sister 
dialect, has great advantages in its favour. The 
influence of either may not be great in their parent 
seats, in Europe, but, connected as they are with 
Asia and Africa, and spread over the richest parts 
of the new world, they are daily growing in im- 
portance, and have largely the promise of the fu- 
ture. Nearly allied to the Latin, from which they 
are descended, and to which they have ready ac- 
cess for new riches, and connected through it with 
the other languages spoken in the south of Europe, 
they have advantages for improvement, and for 
growth, and for facility of being understood, not 
possessed by the Russian. Their history, and their 
early poetry, is the most romantic, and connected 
with those noble and unexpected achievements 
which opened new worlds to the conquerors of the 
Moors. The sun never sets upon their territories, 
or those of their descendants. The countries they 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 257 

have colonized present every advantage for an un- 
limited prosperity. By the continual growth of 
their territorial greatness, their language must be- 
come the native tongue of the greater part of 
America ; it will be spoken on many parts of the 
African continent, it has left traces of itself in In- 
dia, and will spread over the islands from Manilla. 
It has thus a very great foundation for future pre- 
valence, though there are several circumstances 
connected with it 'in which another language has 
greatly the advantage over it. The Spanish and 
Portuguese are sufficiently dissimilar to prevent 
what may be considered the Peninsular language 
from becoming the medium of easy intercourse 
between these nations themselves or their descen- 
dants. The Spanish language, which is the most 
diffused, is, moreover, divided against itself, not 
only at home, where the Castilian has never com- 
pletely supplanted the Provencal in the kingdom of 
Arragon, but also abroad, where it has become 
mixed with the native languages of the country, 
owing to the numbers of the native Indians who 
remained in Peru, and elsewhere, after the conquest 
of the Spanish in America ; and though it is pro- 
bable that the Spanish will throw off, in a great 
measure, these admixtures, yet the process of puri- 
fying from foreign additions may delay the establish- 
ment of Spanish literature, and the advancement 
of the language in various parts of the new world. 
Again, the Spaniards, being so greatly in the rear 
of the other European States, is also a great draw- 
22 



258 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

back to their language taking the lead. Their lite- 
rature has yet to be formed ; they must be learners 
before they can be teachers ; and it is more likely 
at present that they should have recourse to another 
literature and language for instruction, than that 
their own should be generally studied. The En- 
glish language alone remains to be considered, and 
it possesses more advantages than any other for be- 
coming the great and scientific language of the 
world. Englishmen and the descendants of Eng- 
lishmen, will become the most diffused of any 
branch of the family of man, scarcely excepting 
the Jews. It is not merely one quarter of the 
world in which they are spreading themselves ; they 
are colonizing, at one and the same moment, Ame- 
rica, Africa, and Asia, while in Europe their popu- 
lation augments with a rapidity that renders emi- 
gration every year more desirable, and to greater 
numbers. Every class, and every profession is 
over-stocked ; and, from the facility of education, 
and the openings, which are presented to every 
rank of society, to press into the one above it ; in 
information and enterprise, they^are more and more 
decidedly taking the lead among the European na- 
tions. From narrowness of territory, they are 
propelled with greater force to foreign adventures, 
and from their superiority in the arts, they are re- 
ceived with greater readiness by foreign states : 
and their capital, which increases more rapidly than 
any field of exertion which can be opened to it, 
drives their commerce, and their commercial agents, 



I 

IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 259 

to force new entrances, to form new establishments, 
and to spread themselves as widely and remotely 
as possible. The sea is already covered with their 
ships ; the land must in time be covered with their 
counting-houses, and English mechanics, artists, 
and professional men, will find their way in the 
train of the merchants, and escape from a country 
teeming with candidates for every situation. The 
power, and the resources of Britain, pent up at 
home, will spread themselves as wide as the winds 
and waves can carry them, and will cause the 
branches of English population and literature to 
spread over every soil. Every country will be pre- 
pared for the reception of English as the standard 
of literature, and the medium by which it may be 
transmitted or promoted, when they feel the supe- 
riority of the English brought home to them in all 
the productions of life, and in the value which their 
industry confers upon every species of manufac- 
ture ; but above all, England has shot ahead of all 
other nations, and is more rapidly carried along by 
the current of events and the influence of the times, 
and has anticipated those changes and ameliorations, 
of which other nations begin to feel the necessity, 
and those improvements in which they all acknow . 
ledge her to be their precursor and model ; this 
priority of progress, and the belonging, as it were, 
to a more advanced age, will contribute to the ea- 
gerness with which all nations will be brought to 
the study of English, as the key to modern disco- 
veries, and the storehouse of those truths which are 



260 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



beneficial to mankind. The federal republic, though 
its portion of the American Continent is not to be 
compared with that which is possessed by the pe- 
ninsular nations, and is even inferior, in several 
respects, to the acquisitions of the Portuguese, taken 
singly, yet seems destined to exert the greatest in- 
fluence over the rest, from its population being more 
European, with an access to all the riches of Eng- 
lish literature, and with a possession of institutions 
highly adapted to the situation of the new world, 
accordant to the spirit of the times, and approved 
by the dictates of philosophy. It is upon these in- 
stitutions that the other governments of America 
will model themselves, and it is in the career of the 
United States, in its liberality and illumination, that 
they will be anxious to follow. The United States 
have anticipated the rest in the advancement, not 
only of their political institutions, but of their poli- 
tical strength, and the distance they have gained 
they are not likely, in any measure, to lose, but 
rather to increase. The English literature is their 
own ; without exertion on their part they are pos- 
sessed of information the most advanced, and in its 
best form ; and of all the new nations they will be 
tie soonest enabled to enter themselves upon new 
discoveries, to join their own genius to that of their 
kindred beyond the Atlantic, and to increase the 
influence of that language which is common to them 
both. 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 261 



TRANSLATIONS. 

XVI. One great advantage which any language 
should possess, in order to become the general me- 
dium, is, the having transferred to it, in some mea- 
sure, by translations, the peculiar riches of other 
languages, and thus becoming a common receptacle 
for all the stores of intellect ; by means of which 
the readers of each nation might, to a certain de- 
gree, gain access to the wealth of every other na- 
tion, although they had only the opportunity of ad- 
ding one foreign language to their own. In every 
translation, doubtless, there must be a great waste of 
the beauty of the original ; for the very same 
charms can scarcely be transferred, and are rather 
represented by equivalents than correctly imaged 
in a tongue that is foreign to them. Still the gene- 
ral form may be preserved though minuter beauties 
disappear, and a collection of the translated works 
of all countries and times may amply compensate, 
by its vastness and variety, for any deficiency that 
is unavoidable in the rendering of each. English 
is eminently fitted to be the medium of translation 
for the literature of the old and of the new world, 
of the east and of the west. From its Gothic ori- 
gin it has a facility of appropriating to itself the lan- 
guage of the Gothic tribes, and in some measure, 
of all the northern nations, to which the Gothic 
race have given a portion of their own colouring 
and character. By the Norman mixture, it forms 
a junction between the pure Gothic race and the na- 
22* 



262 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

tions who participate in the Roman descent and 
language ; and through them, and the general ac- 
quaintance with classical learning long prevalent in 
England, the language is far from averse to an an- 
tique form of words, and beauty of proportion and 
imagery. The religious reading of the British, es- 
pecially at the commencement of its literature, took 
a deep impression from the Oriental cast of thought 
of the Bible, and the language, in one of its forms, 
combines, without difficulty, or an appearance of 
strangeness, with the gorgeous mataphors of the 
east, their fantastic imagery and violent mode of 
thought and expression. Free and unlimited, from 
the variety of its origin, it presents no obstacles, as 
a literature which has taken one single rigid cast 
must always do, to foreign accessions, but easily 
naturalizes the thoughts of men of every climate, 
and every age, and extends its sympathy as deep as 
humanity itself. In this way, and to attain the ob- 
ject proposed, missions may be extremely useful, in 
enriching the literature of their native land, while 
at the same time, they are gaining the most useful 
knowledge and power to themselves, by rendering 
into Engligh the writings of the country in which 
they are stationed ; and might thus have a peculiar 
claim upon those who are, unfortunately, indifferent 
to religion itself, but who, at least, w r ould aid them 
in augmenting the literary riches of their own 
country, and jn extending its influence by extending 
its language and adding to its possessions. It 
would be a work of national importance to encour- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 263 

age a systematic, and continual translation into 
English, of the standard works of all foreign coun- 
tries, that England might not only be the emporium 
of trade, and the mart for all the natural produc- 
tions of the world, but the reservoir which received 
all the streams of science, and from which they 
could be drawn forth at pleasure, and sent to fer- 
tilize every corner of the globe. 

colonies. 

XVII. England has another mode of spreading 
religion with her language through every country 
and clime. Her colonies, as we have already said, 
occupy large portions of Africa, and of Asia, as 
well as of America ; her population has an increas- 
ing tendency to emigrate, and every waste and thin- 
ly-peopled spot upon the globe seems to be her na- 
tural inheritance. The extreme point of Africa is 
about to receive her laws and her language, and 
the vessels of New South Wales already traverse 
that great ocean which will one day be covered 
with their sails. The solitude of the southern 
ocean, as well as the solitude of the American wil- 
derness, will be broken with their settlements, and 
covered with the monuments of their arts. But it 
is not merely to desolate or thinly-peopled regions 
that the emigration of the English will be confined ; 
for, unless the government is alike ignorant and 
neglectful of the interests of the nation, the most 
fertile and populous country of the east will be 
colonized by English, and their agricultural skill 



264 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

will be transferred to the plains of India, as well as 
their commerce to its shores. A new and enlight- 
ened addition to the population of India will avail 
itself of the bounty of nature, and restore its pre- 
eminence to Hindostan in the cultivation of science. 
The whole east would thus be made to feel the 
moral supremacy of England, and the chains which 
have so long ri vetted those fertile empires would be 
broken for ever. We have elsewhere observed, 
that there were two methods of colonizing — the 
Grecian and the Roman ; the first, the most usually 
practised, the last, the most advantageous. The 
Grecian colonies on the shores of Italy, extirpating 
the few aborigines, and having nothing to dread 
from the presence of foreign and hostile force, 
shook off the yoke of their parent cities, and be- 
came the rivals instead of the dependents of the 
mother country. But the Roman colonies, placed 
in the midst of the vanquished, and employed as 
a perpetual garrison, kept the chain of subjection 
entire, while the natives and the foreigners, mutu- 
ally dreading and distrusting each other, were both 
prevented from entertaining any projects against 
the paramount influence of the conquering city. A 
third method of colonizing, which has rarely been 
acted upon as yet, might be termed the Egyptian, or 
the Phenician, since an example is found of its hap- 
py influence in the early emigration which intro- 
duced into Greece the knowledge and arts of 
Egypt and of Sidon. In this mode of colonizing, 
the emigrants, being too few to remain distinct 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. %65 

from the foreigners among whom they settled, 
speedily incorporated themselves with the native 
population, and only evidenced their separate ori- 
ginal by the higher civilization which they commu- 
nicated, and the filial veneration which they inspir- 
ed, among the tribes they had benefited, for the 
countries from which they came. Notwithstanding 
the disadvantages to which each of these methods 
of colonizing is liable, and the objections which 
might easily be made to them, they are all, when 
properly conducted, sources of national greatness, 
and capable of adding to the wealth or to the 
strength of the country which wisely employed 
them. To an empire which seeks only to add to 
the number of its subjects, colonies formed upon 
the Grecian model are not adapted, and the remark 
of Harrington, in this point of view, is ever appli- 
cable, that " they are babes that cannot live with- 
out sucking the breasts of their mother cities, but 
such as I mistake, if, when they become of age, 
they do not wean themselves ; which causes me to 
wonder at Princes that delight to be exhausted in 
that way !" To a government, however, that would 
extend its commerce, and multiply its allies and its 
resources, on the broad foundation of mutual ad- 
vantage, colonies afford the outlets of a growing 
prosperity, and open an ever- widening circle of en- 
terprise and acquisition. It is the jealousy of the 
mother country which renders colonies a burden at 
their commencement, and which, as soon as they gain 
strength, converts them into enemies. But a libe- 



i<J66 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

ral policy, which, leaving them to the management 
of their own affairs, would free the parent state 
from much useless expenditure, would also secure 
their friendship, and, prolonging the filial affection 
which colonies entertain for their mother country, 
would attach them to its interest, by feelings of ven- 
eration for their original seats, which are deeply im- 
pressed on the minds of nations, and which many 
injuries cannot efface. Even after the unfortunate 
war with the American colonies, the Americans are 
more ready to forgive what they have suffered, than 
the British to forget what they have lost. 

The advantage of colonizing India is much less 
doubtful than that of peopling a deserted tract of 
country. There is no waste of expenditure at first, 
nor that difficulty of taking root in the soil which 
every new settlement experiences, while the colo- 
nists would ever be reminded of their common de- 
scent and common interest with the British, by the 
men of other tongues and of strange aspects that 
surrounded them. The English can have no stable 
footing in India without colonization. There needs 
no hostile sword to cut them off from the face of 
the land ; upon the present system, a few years will 
obliterate the whites, unless renewed by fresh im- 
portations. There can be no danger from white 
settlements in Hindostan ; one hundred millions of 
Mahometans and Hindoos will ever be a sufficient 
guarantee for the loyalty of any number of British 
who could possibly be transported to so great a dis- 
tance. The advantages would be immense, not 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 267 

only to England, but to Hindostan, in an enlighten- 
ed and energetic population, turning to profit the 
resources of the richest country of the east, and 
the renown would be endless, of having established 
over India models of the policy of Rome, and of 
the freedom and knowledge of Britain. It is to be 
hoped that the narrow-spirited monopoly of a tra- 
ding company will not be always suffered to inter- 
fere with the just views of government, nor the 
miscalculating selfishness of individuals to mar the 
fairest prospects of improvement that ever opened 
upon the extremities of Asia. Small colonies upon 
the third, or the Phenician model, might easily be 
spread through the islands of the Pacific, and 
through the south of Africa, introducing among 
them the arts and religion of Britain, and every- 
where taking advantage of the first stirrings of 
thought in barbarous tribes, to give their minds the 
right direction, and to infuse into them, at the mo- 
ment of their formation into civilized states, the 
spirit of English literature and liberty. Through- 
out the South American republics, the influence of 
the English race will be felt in a high degree, partly 
from the example of North America — the forerunner 
in the same career of prosperity ; and in no small 
degree, from the number of English residents, who 
will flock to these newly-opened countries, and 
who, from the higher advances in knowledge, and 
elder civilization, will give, in some measure, a new 
tone to their writings, their education, and their 
manners. 



Q68 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



CONCLUSION. 



XVIII. The means which England has at her 
disposal for spreading Christianity and science over 
the world are ample, and their application would 
be advantageous, not only to her spiritual prosperi- 
ty, but to her temporal condition. Cromwell, who 
of all the rulers of this country best understood its 
true interests, and who, when his private advantage 
did not interfere, most steadily pursued them, had a 
clear view, (as Elizabeth also had before him, who 
might be ranked next to him in the capacity of 
governing,) of the eminence to which England 
might attain, by becoming the head of religion, 
and the chief promoter of piety throughout the 
earth ; and his project in furtherance of this desira- 
ble end, as Burnet remarks, " was certainly a noble 
one. He resolved to set up a council for the Pro- 
testant religion, in opposition to the congregration 
de propaganda fide at Rome. He intended it 
should consist of seven counsellors and four secre- 
taries for different provinces. These were the first, 
France, Switzerland, and the Vallies ; the Palati- 
nate and the other Calvinists were the second ; 
Germany, the North, and Turkey, were the third : 
and the East and West Indies were the fourth. — 
These secretaries w r ere to have five hundred pounds 
salary a-piece, and to keep a correspondence every- 
where, to know the state of religion all over the 
world, that so all good designs might be by their 
means protected and assisted. They were to have 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 269 

a fund of ten thousand pounds a-year at their dis- 
posal for ordinary emergencies, but to be further 
supplied as occasion should require it." Yet what 
individuals have in their power at present is far su- 
perior to what Cromwell had at his disposal. In- 
stead of ten or twenty thousand a-year, upwards of 
three hundred thousand is annually contributed for 
the promotion of religion at home and abroad. — 
The power of voluntary association, which com- 
bines the efforts of all who are favourable to the 
great cause, is mightier in its ultimate results than 
any power which a single monarch could put forth, 
and the agents who might now be obtained are bet- 
ter qualified for the work, and might proceed upon 
more enlarged principles. The only want at pre- 
sent is the want of will, the want of a resolution of 
making efforts proportioned to the end to be obtain- 
ed ; and the great mistake is the aiming at the end 
without sufficiently adapting the means which are 
requisite for its attainment, and the not undergoing 
the preparatory processes wliich are necessary to in- 
sure success. " Ne soyons pas avares de terns ;" the 
maxim which Necker applied to civil revolutions, 
is equally true in moral changes. What is of long 
growth is also of slow decay, and the inveterate 
evils of many ages cannot be eradicated " within 
the hour-glass of one man's life." ( K.) 

But though it may seem long to those whose 
bodies must moulder in the grave before it arrives, 
the time is brief when compared with the past du- 
ration of the world, until the era shall commence. 
23 



270 ADVANCEMENT OP SOCIETY 

when the vail shall be rent, which is spread over 
the face of all people. According to the sure word 
of prophecy, allowing for the variety of interpreta- 
tion, before the oak which was planted yesterday 
shall have reached its full maturity, the whole earth 
shall have become the garden of the Lord. The 
fulness of the gentiles, in every sense, is at hand. — 
The earth will soon be full of people, and full of 
knowledge ; the desert is beginning to bloom, and 
the darkness to disperse, and the minds of men are 
ripening for, and expectant of, the greatest change 
which as yet has passed over the earth. Numbers 
are ready to join in the sublime supplications of 
Milton. 

" Come, therefore, O thou that hast the seven 
stars in thy right hand, appoint thy chosen priests 
according to their orders and courses of old to min- 
ister before thee, and duly to dress and pour out the 
consecrated oil into thy holy and ever-burning 
lamps. Thou hast sent out the spirit of prayer up- 
on thy servants over all the earth to this effect, and 
stirred up their vows as the sound of many waters 
about thy throne. Every one can say, that now 
certainly thou hast visited this land, and has not for- 
gotten the utmost corners of the earth, in a time 
when men had thought that Thou wast gone up 
from us to the farthest end of the heavens, and 
hadst left to do marvellously among the sons of 
these last ages. O perfect and accomplish Thy 
glorious acts ; for men may leave their work unfin- 
ished, but Thou art a God, Thy nature is perfec- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 271 

tion." " The times and seasons pass along under 
Thy feet, to go and come at Thy bidding ; and as 
Thou didst dignify our fathers' days with many 
revelations, above all their foregoing ages since 
Thou tookest the flesh, so Thou canst vouchsafe to 
us, though unworthy, as large a portion of thy spirit 
as Thou pleasest: for who shall prejudice Thy all- 
governing will ? Seeing the power of Thy grace 
is not passed away with the primitive times as fond 
and faithless men imagine, but Thy kingdom is now 
at hand, and Thou standing at the door. Come 
forth out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all 
the kings of the earth ; put on the visible robes of 
Thy imperial majesty, take up that unlimited scep- 
tre which Thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed 
Thee; for now the voice of thy bride calls Thee, 
and all creatures sigh to be renewed." 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY. 



PART FIFTH. 
TENDENCY OF THE AGE. 



VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY CHANGES. 

I. The changes which take place in the world 
are of two kinds — those which are produced by 
the voluntary efforts of individuals, and those which 
are occasioned by alterations of circumstances and 
new combinations of events. The first cannot be 
counted upon with the same certainty as the latter. 
The exertions of individuals are limited and desul- 
tory ; their purposes change, or their power of do- 
ing good is interrupted ; and life itself may fail be- 
fore they can accomplish their designs or bequeath 
their intentions to successors. But the improve- 
ments which necessarily result from the develope- 
ment and progress of society itself, proceed in their 
course like the laws of nature which produce them, 
silent, but irresistible, without pause, and without 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 273 

decay. They are also more the objects of certain 
calculation, and may be more safely reckoned upon 
in their distant results, the wider they spread, and 
the larger the field they embrace. It is a matter 
of great hazard to predict what any individual can 
or will accomplish ; the hazard diminishes when a 
number of individuals are embarked in the same 
enterprise, and conjecture amounts to a degree of 
probability when a society, whose numbers are re- 
newed by fresh accessions, are ever pursuing the 
same objects, with a vigour unabated by the lapse 
of years. The fairest hopes have been blighted 
when success depended on the energy and lives of 
individuals, and the want of zeal or misconduct 
their successors has suddenly terminated an impulse 
that was communicating a movement to society 
which those who witnessed its commencement did 
not expect would be speedily arrested. The zeal 
and activity of the primitive Christians ceased to 
animate those who entered upon the labours of their 
predecessors, and enjoyed the fruits of them, with- 
out wishing to share in the self-denial and the fa- 
tigue by which they had been obtained. The fol- 
lowers of the reformers turned the weapons, which 
Luther and Calvin had forged against the church of 
Rome, into missiles against each other, and employ- 
ed the fervour and eloquence, which might have 
extended the reformation on every side, in contro- 
versies, trivial in themselves, but fatal in their con- 
sequences. The revival of religion in the present 
dav may not continue long ; it may be terminated 
23* 



274 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

like those seasons of promise which have gone be- 
fore, and have passed away without bringing on that 
universal spring which, sooner or later, will give a 
new verdure to the moral world. Such an inter- 
ruption, though not at this moment in any degree 
probable, is still in the possibility of events ; but, 
in addition to the arguments which might be brought 
against the recurrence of any delay in the hasten- 
ing forward of that happy period, when the earth 
shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as 
the waters cover the face of the deep — still stronger 
conviction might be grounded on that preparation 
of the moral world, and from that disposition of all 
its parts, by which they are ready to concur in for- 
warding a great and renovating change throughout 
its whole extent. Society abounds in resources 
for its speedy amelioration, and in instruments suf- 
ficiently powerful to accomplish every beneficial 
design, however remote or immense, new forces 
are developed, and new facilities disclose themselves, 
and the general mind is beginning to stir itself with 
the first vague aspirations after some undefined and 
future good — as the surface of the ocean is rough- 
ened and agitated before it has encountered the 
storm which is yet brooding at a distance. 

PHILOSOPHY OF CHARITY. 

II. A new power arises from the improvement 
in benevolence ; the charity of instinct is giving 
way to the charity of principle. It is well known 
that " wise antiquity" worshipped two different be- 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 275 

ings under the name of love — the elder issuing, 
with golden wings, from the egg of night, immortal, 
immutable — the younger, esteemed the son of Flora 
and Zephyr, fickle as his paternal breezes, and tran- 
sient as his mother's flowers. A mythologist might, 
in like manner, have assigned two different perso- 
nifications to charity — describing the one as born 
of pity and occasion, the other as sprung from Eros 
and Sophia, or foresight — the one fair and frail as 
the daughters of men, the other with the severe 
and lasting beauty of the immortals — the one hold- 
ing forth a single cup of water to the passing pil- 
grim, the other digging a well in the desert, which, 
once opened, will flow for ever. The first merely 
removes a want, the second implants a principle. 
The first dies with the event which gave birth to it. 
the second is endowed with seminal virtue, and re- 
produces and multiplies its likeness. The doctrines 
of Malthus, though at first they may have chilled 
the common-place benevolence of the public, by 
withdrawing it from those feigned objects of dis- 
tress, by which it was habitually and instinctively 
excited, will ultimately increase to a great extent 
the resources of true charity. The passion for do- 
ing good will survive its misdirection, and a vast 
sum will be liberated from employments worse than 
useless — from creating that misery which it has a 
vain show of relieving ; will be dedicated to the 
noblest purposes, and far from being dried up, will 
only be poured into another channel, and with an 
ampler stream. 



; 276 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



POWER OF MORAL INSTRUMENTS. 

III. Nor will proper objects be wanting for the 
expenditure of whatever sums are saved by a wiser 
economy of charity. On every side new powers 
are springing up available for the uses of humanity, 
and these powers are at the disposal of charity to 
multiply, to direct, and to improve. The press 
alone baffles all calculations of its consequences, 
and requires but a right direction of its efforts to 
produce a result of good of which no eye could see 
the limits, no thought could compute the sum. In 
Great Britain and America this influence has reach- 
ed a height beyond the conjecture of former years, 
and writings increase in number and importance 
with a rapidity beyond example. The number of 
readers increases in proportion ; the opinions of 
all classes are formed by books ; and an authority 
may be exerted by means of the press over the 
general mind, which has had no precedent in the 
times that are past, nor will be thoroughly under- 
stood till it becomes manifested in some future and 
unexpected example. Education, even where it is 
opposed, is extending itself, and a revolution is be- 
gun in that power which of itself is able to cause 
a revolution in every thing else. All begin to read 
— all will in the end begin to think, and those laws 
and institutions which were intended for the use of 
the unthinking must give place to new ones. Vol- 
untary associations are giving new strength to the 
frame of society, and infusing a new spirit into it. 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 277 

and bringing those objects which once seemed 
placed beyond the reach of individuals into secure 
and every-day attainment. But improvements are 
not only perfected but everywhere extended. The 
Hindoos have now their newspapers, and the re- 
motest barbarians their schools ; and the first symp- 
toms are everywhere apparent of the change that 
is spreading through every climate, and which will 
at last be visible to the utmost verge of the habita- 
ble earth. 

INCREASING IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY. 

IV. An improvement is taking place in the mu- 
tual action of society upon itself; the influence of 
the higher upon the lower is now met by a counter 
influence, and the progress which those of the low- 
er extremity of the social scale are now making, 
will have an accelerating effect upon those immedi- 
ately above them, and the speed of every class 
will be augmented from the fear of being overtaken. 
The extremes of society are done away. There 
are no longer hereditary bondsmen, deprived of all 
hope of ascending in the scale whatever might be 
their moral worth or industry ; and there are no 
hereditary classes, privileged to inactivity and folly, 
and exempted, by their high rank, from the loss of 
consideration by their loss of character ; but public- 
opinion is brought to bear upon all ; and all, by 
heavy penalties, are made to feel themselves respon- 
sible. Thus Society has gained a doubly accelerat- 
ing force ; the improvements that are adopted by 



278 



ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 



the higher classes are emulously caught, and rapidly 
transmitted to the lower, and the advancement of 
the latter urges a new progress upon the former, 
and those who have least in their power are still 
enabled to return in part the benefits they receive. 
The schools of arts instituted for the instruction of 
mechanics will ultimately have the effect of spread- 
ing and advancing the knowledge of natural philo- 
sophy among all ranks of the community. A 
knowledge of the elements of mechanical and 
chemical science, from the example held out by 
workmen in towns, will be judged essential to the 
ordinary course of education, and become prevalent 
in every method of instruction. The demand cre- 
ated by these schools for teachers will give encour- 
agement to young men prosecuting philosophical 
studies, and afford them an opportunity of discov- 
ering whatever powers they may possess. That 
patronage and incitement which governments ought 
to hold forth in the aid of scientific knowledge 
will, in some measure, be supplied by the contri- 
butions which are raised by the operative classes ; 
and the openings which their instruction will afford 
to rising merit may compensate for the want of the 
fostering care which the rulers of this and other 
countries ought to have bestowed on the abstract 
research of truth. 

IMPROVEMENT OF GOVERNMENTS. 

V. Governments, as well as their subjects, begin 
to' feel the force of that change which time is slowly 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 270 

but inevitably producing. Before the French revo- 
lation, they showed the influence they felt by being 
gently carried along by the stream of opinion ; and 
since that time, by violently struggling against it. 
The twenty years which preceded the French re- 
volution were distinguished by a greater reform of 
abuses than had taken place in the preceding cen- 
tury, till at last the monarchs of Europe became 
alarmed at the rapidity of the current which was 
so rapidly bearing them along. A wide-reaction 
has since taken place, and the violence and want of 
principle by which the changes in France were 
marked, have been accompanied, as is always the 
case, with want of permanence in those institutions 
that were designed to supplant the former ones ; 
still the old governments, though successful in their 
opposition, have found it prudent to give up many 
of their out-posts as untenable, and to concentrate 
the arbitrary exercise of their power within nar- 
rower limits. Overawed by the presence of an 
invisible but everywhere diffused enemy, they have 
suspended their ancient animosities, and have united 
in the only principle, in which they are ever likely 
to be permanently agreed, in the perpetual design 
of crushing the rising liberties of the world ; cer- 
tainly, at the present moment, the task of governing 
the countries of Europe is no easy one, the old 
restraints and prejudices are destroyed, kings of 
the continents themselves have rent that veil of 
separation, which the orientals wisely spread before 
their monarch, and behind which they might long 



280 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

have remained like idols of dark origin, and uncer- 
tain attributes, and have rashly produced themselves 
in all their littleness to the familiar gaze of their 
subjects. The spell is broken which bound men 
to reverence that which was ancient and establish- 
ed, whether it merited their reverence or not ; and 
force or religion, fear or conscience, alone remain, 
as the sole alternatives by which the multitude can 
be kept within the bounds of submission. Govern- 
ments which heretofore have not been very favour- 
able to conscience, as if it established an imperium 
in imperio, set limits to their jurisdiction, and as- 
serted an appeal to a higher power, may now be 
expected to be more favourable to religion, as the 
only balm which can soften the asperity of political 
rancour, and allay the feverish and passionate ex- 
citement after political change, which the present 
circumstances of Europe are widely extending. 
In this country, which has already undergone, we 
may trust, all the violent changes it was fated to 
encounter, and where the government accommo- 
dates itself at length, though at times somewhat 
tardily and reluctantly, to the general will of the 
nation, the increasing intelligence of society has 
operated most beneficially upon the ruling powers, 
who have undergone a manifest alteration for the 
better during the last twenty years, and still more 
evidently during the two or three years which have 
immediately past. But if the tories have amazingly 
improved in liberality and intelligence since the 
days when they first received their denomination. 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 



28, 



the whigs have not been equally fortunate, though 
they too have greatly changed from the illustrious 
men who first bore that name of reproach and 
renown. The cause of liberty has ever been un- 
fortunate in the miscellaneous collection of its fol- 
lowers, who, using the same names for very different 
purposes, arrange themselves under her standard. 
The profession of public virtue has ever been a 
comfortable cloak for private vices ; and licence 
and liberty have too often been united in the pro- 
fession and practice of the same men. In the 
revolution of 1688, the true whigs had the misfor- 
tune to have their numbers augmented by a wretch- 
ed accession of libertines and infidels ; and the 
cause for which Addison wrote and lived was pol- 
luted by the pen of such an advocate as Toland. — 
" The good die first." — The Tolands have prospered 
and multiplied. Can as much be said for the Addi- 
sons ? " Eating and drinking," says Berkeley, " mo- 
dern patriotism, and the chief proof of patriotism, 
which many lovers of their country have to pro- 
duce, is their attending at an anniversary feast, 
where they promote the cause of freedom by sneers 
against the Bible Society ; and while they overturn 
virtue and religion, the two props on which liberty 
rests, as far as they are able, by their lives, and by 
their discourses, they think that all is well, and that 
mankind are their debtors, since they give to the 
cause of humanity the poor requital of their bum- 
pers and vociferations. An opposition however is 
of less consequence to this country now that the 
24 



282 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

nation watches over its own rights, and is fast 
escaping from a state of tutelage ; and the vacil- 
lating opinions of a party, ever ready to veer 
where the interests of a faction incline, will give 
way to solid views of general advantage, as com- 
prehensive as the interests of the public, and deeply 
seated in the breast of the nation." 

REVOLUTION IN OPINION. 

VI. Even were governments not improved, they 
must change and adapt themselves to the change in 
opinion ; — the greatest despotisms are forced to re- 
cede when they encounter the national sentiments, 
or come into concussion with long established usa- 
ges ; and opinion, in one shape or another, is that by 
which all governments are modelled or upheld. — 
As public opinion is debased by ignorance, or en- 
lightened by knowledge, enfeebled by vice, or 
strengthened by moral principle, nations rise or 
sink in the scale of freedom, and every accession of 
science and virtue has a tendency to render men 
more free. If this is not more obvious, it is owing 
to the slow ripening of moral results, and to the 
tardier process of actions and their consequences 
on a great scale, and in the history of nations, 
where it is ever true, that one generation sows and 
another reaps. The revolution which has at pre- 
sent taken place in opinion, will inevitably, thougli 
perhaps slowly, produce correspondent alterations 
in the condition of society ; and when the minds 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 283 

of men are sufficiently prepared, a new social ar- 
rangement will take the place of the other modifi- 
cations of Society which had preceded it, and 
fill the world with new institutions, as different 
from those which prevailed in the kingdoms of 
modern Europe, as the institutions of the latter dif- 
fered from those of the ancient republics of Greece 
and Italy. 

CLASSIC REPUBLICS. 

VII. Machiavel was the first to perceive, and 
rightly to denote, the differences between the go- 
vernments which prevailed in his time and those 
ancient republics which filled the world with their 
renown, and subdued it with their arms. And, 
while he justly distinguished all the political institu- 
tions that have attained to eminence into two great 
divisions — the ancient and the modern, the classic 
and the gothic, he justly gave a preference to the 
former, as the most perfect and illustrious. It is 
this distinction which alone accounts for the diver- 
sified and opposite schemes of policy which he has 
proposed in his two great political works. In his 
wonderful commentary upon Livy he unveiled the 
secret of the prosperity and aggrandizement of 
the Romans. To complete the exposition of polity, 
he presented, in his prince, the reverse of the pic- 
ture, in the gothic government, such as it prevailed 
in his own days in the small principalities of Italy. 
It is neither a satire, nor an eulogy ; it is the com- 
pletion of a great design, which, in two works, em. 
braces the description of the two forms which 



284 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

states had, to his day, assumed, with a decided pre- 
ference, on the part of the author, for the ancient 
mode of government, but tempered with the indif- 
ference which a thorough-paced Atheist entertained 
for morality, and marked with an unqualified ad- 
miration for power in all its forms — the sole idol 
that remains in a world where a deity is disbelieved. 
Machiavel might justly be charged with undervalu- 
ing the Gothic form of government, when com- 
pared to the classic ; Harrington understood it bet- 
ter and undervalued it less ; Sismondi has drawn 
a brief but correct contrast between them, and ap- 
pears io have given to both their peculiar merits 
and comparative value. Without entering upon 
ground which has already been so well traversed, 
it is sufficient to point out the origin of their differ- 
ence without enumerating its minute details. The 
point where the civilization of the ancients com- 
menced was the foundation of a city ; the point 
w r hence the civilization of the Gothic race com- 
menced was their sallying from the woods of Ger- 
many, and their taking possession of a large por- 
tion of the Roman empire. From this difference in 
their original position, the diversities of their man- 
ners, their institutions, and their history, may be 
traced. With the Greeks, the city was every thing, 
and the individual members of it were nothing. — 
As the foundation of it, so its subsequent prosperity 
was the fundamental object to which all interests 
were subordinate, and all private advantage was 
postponed. The city was not only supreme in their 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 285 

thoughts, but personified in their imaginations. To 
her rights, as the common mother of them all, the 
rights of the citizens in their private capacity readily 
gave way, and acts of the grossest injustice were 
easily glossed over by a pretext of public good ; 
and the selfishness of each citizen, as well as his 
sense of justice, was at times almost obliterated, in 
his high-wrought devotion to his country, which 
equally set aside private advantage and private mo- 
rality. 

GOTHIC KINGDOMS. 

VIII. The gothic regimen was a retention of the 
freedom of the woods among the conquerors, mix- 
ed with military superiority towards the vanquished. 
As their union was voluntary before they proceed- 
ed to conquest, and as their rank was unequal, they 
possessed, by compact, mutual rights, attended with 
an inequality of privileges proportioned to the ine- 
quality of their means and resources for the expe- 
dition they were about to undertake. From this 
original distinction of ranks, the nation was never 
considered as a whole ; the classes of which it was 
made up were alone regarded. The privileges of 
particular bodies were respected, but the general 
interest was forgotten, or at least was postponed, 
till every particular interest was secured. From 
this source many of the anomalies in the policy of 
later times have proceeded, and that inverse method 
of legislation has taken its rise, which provides for 
the benefit of parts at the expense of the whole, 
24* 



286 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

and which has ever been inclined to consider the 
nation as without a civil existence till it was separa- 
ted into classes and endowed with privileges. But 
this system, though far inferior to the classic polity, 
in the general regulation of the state, and in the 
means of promoting its aggrandizement, excels the 
republics of old as much on the one hand, in per- 
sonal security and private happiness. The rights 
of individuals have been respected, the property 
and lives of the citizens have been better guarded, 
and fewer victims have been offered to the pretend- 
ed necessity of the state. The ancient govern- 
ments were more powerful and energetic in pro- 
portion to their extent ; but they wanted that per- 
sonal freedom which the gothic tribes brought from 
their woods and secured to their descendants. 

UNIVERSAL FORM. 

IX. As the ancient form of government was 
founded upon the general notion of a community* 
and the gothic upon the privileges annexed to dif- 
ferent ranks, so a new and universal form of civil 
institutions is arising, founded not upon the circum- 
stances of a particular period of society, but upon 
the common nature of man and the general end of 
government. The gothic kingdoms, having under- 
gone the changes that from their first constitution, 
awaited them, and fulfilled the period prescribed to 
them, are approaching, by a slow decay, to a gradual 
but certain dissolution. Their constituent elements 
are in the act of decomposition, and are prepared to 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 287 

unite in new combinations, and to enter into other 
forms. The gothic aristocracy is but the shadow of 
its former power ; the kings and the people alike 
occupy a different place from their early position ; 
the spirit of the age has changed, and nothing re- 
mains the same but the institutions and outward 
form of society, which vainly expect permanence 
while all are shifting around them. A warfare has 
already begun between the past and the present and 
every country of the continent contains within it- 
self a party hostile to its establishments, whose 
numbers gain fresh accessions, and their opinions 
new weight, with every succeeding year. The 
spirit of the times is not democratical ; it differs 
equally from the republican ardour of the ancients, 
as from the wild independence of the german race : 
nor is it unfavourable to kings, considered as the 
chief representatives of the nation, though it opposes 
the separate interests of classes considered as dis- 
tinct from the general welfare, it justly determines, 
that the general utility is the sole end of govern- 
ment, as it is the sole end that can unite the co-ope- 
ration of reasonable and voluntary agents, and that 
the only just form of society is where the common 
weal is provided for by the common will. 

PUBLIC OPINION. 

X. This gradual change in the ground-work of 
society is undermining all the obstacles which force 
and superstition have opposed to the progress of 
true religion. The kings who lent their aid to 



288 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

support a spiritual thraldom are shaken upon their 
thrones, by the civil earthquakes which are about 
to pass from country to country ; and their whole 
care, and their remaining power, must be put forth 
to delay the evil day of retribution. The attention 
of kings js thus distracted from so systematic an 
attempt as they exerted at the reformation, to put 
down religious truth ; and public opinion, on the 
other hand, has become decidedly tolerant, and puts 
some restraint on those harsh and sanguinary mea- 
sures, ever the readiest arguments which force and 
tyranny are inclined to use. Thus the action of the 
general mind is removing every impediment which 
has hitherto retarded the progress of social advance- 
ment and the dissemination of truth, and is prepar- 
ing the way, by levelling every obstruction, for the 
messengers who will proclaim to every country the 
spiritual advent of the King of Peace and Righteous- 
ness. The minds of men, restless and dissatisfied 
with their present condition, suffer no hidden re- 
cesses to remain unexplored, but all pretensions are 
questioned, and every claim is investigated. Inquiry, 
by its ceaseless and corrosive action, is wearing 
away those fetters of the mind, which kept its 
faculties dormant, and limited the range of its 
powers ; and men, enlarged into a new and unex- 
pected liberty, and suddenly released from their 
former and fictitious bonds, and no longer suffering 
the same restraints to confine them, must depend 
solely hereafter for their right self-government on 
the directions which reason and religion afford 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. '2$9 

them ; and the admonitions of conscience must 
supply the vacancy which is occasioned by the re- 
moval of their imaginary terrors. Thus the general 
changes which are inevitably taking place in the 
moral world, conspire to undermine or overthrow 
those barriers which have hindered the progress of 
religion, and the silent alterations of society, no less 
than the efforts of individuals, are hastening the 
period when the triumph of truth shall be perma- 
nent and universal. 

EUROPE. 

XI. Throughout Europe there is no less a revo- 
lution in the relative position of the nations towards 
each other than in the interior condition of each. 
The French and the Russians have changed situa- 
tions in the political scale ; Petersburgh has become 
the centre of aggression, and Paris that of resist- 
ance and defence. The invasions which Europe 
has now to dread are from the north, and the hope 
of its ultimate freedom rests upon the energy and 
the prosperity of its southern states. The position 
of Russia is eminently favourable for successful 
and limitless encroachment, and possesses within 
itself ample space for ever-increasing numbers. 
It has no enemy behind it to distract its attention 
or divide its efforts ; it has only opposed to it a weak 
and broken frontier, without any one commanding 
defence, and with vulnerable points innumerable 
from the Baltic to the sea of Japan. The Swedes, 
the Poles, the Turks, the Persians, the Turcomans, 



290 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

and the Chinese, are unable to cope with the Rus- 
sian armies, and must yield at the first shock of the 
invader. Austria and Prussia hold their Polish 
provinces, in some measure, at the mercy of Rus- 
sia, and France is the only nation which, single- 
handed, could afford an adequate resistance. As 
France has changed from the attitude of aggression 
to that of defence, England, the supporter of the 
independence of the continental nations, becomes 
the natural ally of France instead of being its 
" natural enemy ;" and henceforth it is manifestly 
the interest of this country that the French should 
be great, powerful, and free. It is certainly for the 
advantage of England, that the seat of aggrandise- 
ment and danger should be removed from the banks 
of the Seine to the shores of the Baltic ; and an 
Attila, whose troops are encamped in Poland, and 
along the frontiers of China, is less to be dreaded 
than an enemy of inferior power, who has the oc- 
cupation of Boulogne and Brest. The wide sepa- 
ration between Russia and England leaves no 
adjacent field of combat on which they might mea- 
sure their forces and decide the contest ; and Eng- 
land, it is now evident, can best preserve the inde- 
pendence and prosperity of Europe by preserving 
peace ; and her surest weapon is the communica- 
tion of her own knowledge and liberty ; before 
which, barbarism, however potent, must bow, and 
stirred up by which, vassals, however depressed, 
will rise up and shake off the yoke. While Britain 
counterbalances the ascendency of Russia in the 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 291 

west, she will divide with her the supremacy of the 
east, and have for her share the fairest, if not the 
most extensive portion of Asia. They are the two 
great antagonist powers in the old world, opposite 
in their nature as in their influence — the one phy- 
sically, the other morally great — the one at present 
retarding, the other accelerating the march of 
European society ; but both ultimately destined to 
be the instruments of political changes which will 
give a new face to the institutions of the ancient 
Continent. As the balance of power is shifting 
among the nations that compose the European con- 
federation, it is changing also in the component 
parts of each individual state ; and the struggle for 
political liberty is begun which can only terminate 
with the general acquisition of free institutions. 
This tendency to freedom it is every way the inter- 
est of Britain to foster and protect. Despotic 
kings are truly her natural enemies, who must in- 
evitably wish to destroy those institutions which are 
of so bad example to their own subjects ; and it is 
only from freemen, actuated by a similar spirit, that 
she can expect cordial sympathy and co-opera- 
tion. (L.) 

Freedom, which far more than doubles the force 
of states, derives a new value from the energy it 
would communicate to the nations, in resisting the 
attacks of every aggressor ; and the new life and 
additional permanency it would infuse into the states 
of the Continent, who require every aid, in their 
present circumstances, and every amelioration in 



292 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

their condition, to enable them to resist the pressure 
which they must soon feel, from the vicinity and 
the growth of the Russian empire. 

AMERICA. 

XII. If the fate of Europe were different from 
the expectations that are formed of its rising pros- 
perity, and if its free and civilized states should fall 
before a new irruption of barbarians, America 
would soon fill up the blank, and take the lead in the 
advancement of society. The enlightened and the 
brave of the old world would withdraw from the 
slavery of their native lands, and with the same ar- 
dour, on another side of the globe, would follow the 
pursuit of truth, and enlarge the boundaries of sci- 
ence. America, no longer receiving the supplies of 
knowledge from abroad, would commence an ori- 
ginal literature, and, beginning where the Europeans 
had ended, would enter a fresh career of improve- 
ment, and explore new riches of mind. In less 
than twenty five years the American States double 
their population, and more than double their resour- 
ces ; and their influence, which is even now felt in 
Europe, will every year exert a wider sway over 
the minds of men, and hold out to them a more il- 
lustrious example of prosperity and freedom. In 
little more than a century the United States of 
America must contain a population ten times great- 
er than has ever yet been animated by the spirit and 
energy of a free government ; and in less than a 
century and a half the new world will not be able 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 293 

to contain its inhabitants, but will pour them forth, 
straitened by their overflowing numbers at home, 
upon the shores of less civilized nations, till the 
whole earth is subdued to knowledge, and filled 
with the abodes of free and civilized men. But the 
spirit and the imitation of American freedom will 
spread still more rapidly and widely than its pow- 
er. No force can crush the sympathy that already 
exists, and is continually augmenting, between Eu- 
rope and the new world. The eyes of the oppres- 
sed are even now turning wistfully to the land of 
freedom, and the kings of the continent already re- 
gard with awe and disquietude the new Rome ris- 
ing in the west, the fore-shadows of whose great- 
ness, yet to be, are extending dark and heavy over 
their dominions, and obscuring the lustre of their 
thrones. 

UNIVERSAL PREVALENCE OF RELIGION AND 
KNOWLEDGE. 

XIII. If one source of future prosperity is dried 
up, another is ready to break forth, and amidst the 
variety of events, a great moral improvement is se- 
cured to mankind. Either Europeans or their de- 
scendants must spread over the globe, and carry 
with them their arts and their opinions, changing 
the moral aspect of the world, and introducing eve- 
rywhere a new manner of life, a new philosophy, 
and a new religion. The dark and unvisited re- 
gions of the earth must become open and traversed. 
Mankind, as they have one common interest, will 
25 



294 ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY 

have one common mind. The same opinions will 
circulate throughout, and the same convictions will 
ultimately prevail. All other creeds will give way 
in the natural course of events, and Christianity, 
considered merely as a system of human opinion, 
must be expected to become universal, since it is 
the only religious system adapted to the improved 
condition of humanity ; and the earth will become 
one family, forsaking their errors and their idols, 
and worshipping one common father. There was 
a greater disproportion between the resources of 
the first christians, and their success in changing 
the moral condition of the Roman empire, than 
there is at present between the means which chris- 
tians now possess and the universal conversion of 
the world. Nothing is wanting but the will, and 
the energy, and the intelligence, which would ena- 
ble them to keep the same object ever in view, and 
to choose the path that would most certainly lead 
to it. Society, independently of human volition, is 
preparing itself for a great transition ; the many 
wheels of its intricate mechanism are beginning to 
revolve, and a complicated movement continually 
accelerated by fresh impulses, is bearing along the 
world from its wintry and torpid position, and bring- 
ing it under the influence of serener heavens and an 
awakening spring. All the genial powers of nature 
will be unlocked, and the better feelings that have 
long slumbered in the breast of man will be roused 
to life. True benevolence will come in the train of 
genuine Christianity ; and mankind, in promoting 



IN KNOWLEDGE AND RELIGION. 295 

the welfare of each other, will find that happiness 
which has long escaped them. Evil, though it can 
never be entirely eradicated from human nature on 
this side of death, will yet be repressed in all its 
manifestations as soon as it presents itself, and the 
thoughts and endeavours of all will tend to heal 
the inevitable ills which flesh is heir to. Then will 
be the harvest of the moral world ; and the seed of 
noble thoughts and deeds that once seemed lost, 
shall suddenly shoot forth, and ripen to maturity, 
and the success of wrong even in this world shall 
seem brief compared with the long ages that shall 
crown the efforts of wisdom and virtue. (M.) 



NOTES 



Note A. Page 9. 

The peculiar tenet of the school of Turgot, which em- 
braces among its disciples, Condorcet and Madame de Stael, 
is what they term the indefinite perfectability of human 
nature ; by which they imply its constant and necessary 
improvement. But as the situation of the world at present, 
and the records of history, are not altogether favourable 
to this opinion, they have adopted a theory by which these 
opposite appearances may be reconciled with their system. 
To account for the slow progress which mankind have 
made under the influence of this constantly propelling 
power, by which they are supposed to be borne along, they 
have recourse to the savage state, in its rudest forms, ay 
the original condition of mankind ; and from this point of 
extreme depression, they are enabled to mark a considera- 
ble extent of ascent to'the position which they now occupy. 
The Greeks are rather in the way of tbis theory, and the 
eminence which they attained in the arts by no means- 
pleases them. These attainments they depreciate, and 
consider them, with Madame de Stael, merely as the seed s 
of civilization, which the winds were to scatter, and which 
25* 



208 NOTES. 

were to produce a harvest in distant countries. The dark 
ages are a still greater difficulty ; but Turgot discovered 
that the human mind developed a force in the study of the 
scholastic dialectics, which it could have acquired in no 
other pursuit — a supposition which would be more plausi- 
ble if those who took the lead at the revival of letters, or 
at the reformation, had been much versant in the scholastic 
theology; but the reverse was the case; the reformers, 
and the restorers of letters, were the despisers of the 
schoolmen; and the subtlety, and the tension of mind, 
which is acquired in solving the enigmas of ontology, are 
the opposites of those mental habits which conduce to the 
detection of error, or the discovery of truth. Kings and 
priests, according to this theory, are the two evil powers, 
from whose malign influence has arisen every disaster that 
has befallen humanity, or every delay that has retarded its 
progress. They are like the old man of the sea upon the 
back of Sinbad ; but the press is about to do the same 
good office for mankind that the juice of the grape did for 
the Arabian mariner. Kings and priests will speedily lose 
their hold of their victim ; and the mind, freed from every 
impediment by the French revolution, will hold on its 
course, exempted from every obstacle which might in fu- 
ture retard its speed. A sort of natural immortality is 
promised by Condorcet in lieu of that real immortality 
which his scepticism denied ever to be the inheritance of 
man, and an indefinite extension of life is prognosticated 
from the improvement of medicine, which will make death 
a very remote evil, and almost beyond the bound of arith- 
metical calculation, — to those who have the good fortune 
of being born after an indefinite series of ages. This pro- 
phecy, which assures an indefinite life to those who are 
born in an indefinite futurity, can certainly receive no de- 
finite contradiction from events, and is much safer than 
foretelling the consequences of the French revolution ; but 
the ignorance which it displays, of reasoning, and of me- 



NOTES. 299 

dicine, of facts, and of the rules of philosophical investiga- 
tion, sufficiently shows, that it is not for want of an ample 
share of credulity that men are unbelievers ; but since the 
disappointment and shock of the French revolution, these 
are not the prevalent errors, and men are more disposed to 
conclude, that " The thing that has been is the thing that 
shall be." 



Note B. Page 9. 

All the dreams of the darkest and rudest ages have their 
counterparts, and even their caricatures, in the philosophy 
of the transcendentalists. In their reasonings they have 
reproduced the mistakes of the earliest ages : it may be 
said with truth, though it be a paradox, that the schoolmen, 
the dark writers of the dark ages, throw light upon the 
philosophical writings of Germany; they admire what the 
rest of the world have rejected, and, in their backward 
progress, revert to the ancient standards, and replace the 
idols which have been forsaken. Spinoza is thought an 
accomplished philosopher, Thomas Aquinas an undoubted 
authority. The rational divines of Germany have got rid 
of every thing supernatural in the bible, by the easy belief, 
that all the miracles there recorded happened quite natu- 
rally in the ordinary course of events, while the philoso- 
phic Theists are divided in opinion, whether to admit the 
existence of the deity upon the hypothesis of Kant, who 
left a blank space for him in his theory, or on the promise 
of Fichte, who pledged himself to create him in his next 
lecture, or on the prediction of Schelling, who, though he 
doubted that Fichte was as good as his word, nevertheless 
pointed out the time when the deity would begin to exist. 



300 



NOTES. 



Note C. Page 10. 

Etymology has been an ignis fatuus to all who have en- 
gaged in it. First came those who, on the strength of 
disjointed syllables, managed to trace all terms to Hebrew 
roots, and to derive every thing from the Jews. Another 
description of learned men, Celt or Goth, traced the ori- 
gin of every distinguished race, and every improvement; 
to their own favoured stock, from which, as a common 
centre, had emanated whatever was illustrious or remark- 
able. Bryant took a higher flight, and despoiled all these 
of their titles and pretensions in favour of a race who ex- 
isted in his own imagination, and to whom he very appro- 
priately assigned an imaginary language. Professor Mur- 
ray is quite aware of the mistakes of Bryant, and justly 
reprehends him as one who has adulterated the vestiges of 
ancient history and language ; yet he himself, with his 
great powers, has not been able to escape the easily-beset- 
ting error of etymologists, but has been more extravagant 
than all his predecessors in the supposition of a tribe, the 
parent of the Celts, Goths, Greeks, Sarmatians, Persians. 
and Indians, all whose parts of speech were reduced to the 
solitary word Ag, from which single monosyllable he de- 
duces the languages of one-third of the globe, with won- 
derfully great ingenuity, and wonderfully little sense. As 
poverty is the mother of invention, this single and simple 
sound of Ag, which, to let his readers a little into his 
meaning, is nearly synonymous, if not quite identical, with 
that of wag, was soon enriched by the kindred sounds of 
bag or bwag, " of which fag and pag are softer varieties ;'' 
and 3dly, " with dwag, which signifies a violent blow, and 
gwag, which signifies a quick, tottering, unequal impulse, 
afnd lag, which denotes a pliant slap, and mag, which sig- 
nifies compression, and nag, a crushing power, and rag, a 
penetrating power, and swag, which signifies to move with 



NOTES. 301 

a weighty and strong impulse, whence our swagger.' 
" These nine words," says Professor Murray, " are the 
foundations of language, on which an edifice has been 
erected of a more useful and wonderful kind, than any 
which have exercised human ingenuity." 

Notwithstanding this portentous instance of etymolo- 
gical delirium, Professor Murray's book throws strong 
additional light on the affinities between the languages of 
the east and west, and affords several probable explana- 
tions from the Gothic dialects, of abstract terms in all the 
languages from the Celtic to the Sanscrit — explanations 
which these languages themselves did not so readily fur- 
nish ; thus demonstrating, in the most cogent manner, their 
common origin, and their kindred processes of improve- 
ment and thought. Still it is evident that etymology, to 
be followed to purpose, must be pursued in quite a different 
manner ; and that all generalizing theories respecting the 
origin of speech must be very cautiously investigated, til] 
we are better acquainted with the processes by which lan- 
guages are changed, by analyzing the combination, and 
settling the philosophy, of those modern languages with 
which we are best acquainted. The whole of language. 
in all its component sounds, is so plastic and mutable, and 
each change has such a tendency to induce new changes, 
that words yield small resistance to whoever would accom- 
modate them to his own theory ; and, having determined 
what conclusions we wish to arrive at, we shall soon find 
an easy theory to convey us. But the study of the philo- 
sophy and the history of languages is indeed a difficult 
pursuit, which requires the co-operation of many minds, 
and the investigation and restraint of the severest criticism ; 
yet, doubtless, in time these difficulties will be overcome 
by numbers and perseverance, and languages will be traced 
throughout the changes which they have undergone, and 
amid the diversities which they now present, to the simpli- 
city and rudiments of their common origin. 



302 NOTES. 



Note D. Page 10. 

Nations exist long before they feel the want of a nation- 
al history, and when that want is attempted to be supplied, 
the materials have perished or are deficient. In the ab- 
sence of a just chronology, for what rude tribe ever kept 
correct dates? they form imaginary periods, into which 
they divide their history, corresponding to the cycles of 
their computation of times. To fill up these periods they 
collect the lists of the petty kings who have reigned over 
neighbouring districts in the rude ages of their political ex- 
istence, as in the case of the dynasties of Egypt ; and to 
present something more than a barren catalogue, the re- 
mains of popular poetry, or popular tradition, are inserted, 
to give some colour of life and action to the roll of forgot- 
ten names. Such is the account of the robbery of Rhem- 
phis by the sons of the architect of his treasury, and such 
the story of the method by which the daughter of Cheops 
built a pyramid; which savour strongly of their origin and 
preservation among the mob of Memphis and Thebes of the 
hundred gates. 

It is thus that, in the national annals, instead of finding 
the general stream of history, we meet with the details of 
Border warfare, preserved amid the oblivion of the great 
contests of the empire, and local incidents and wonders in- 
stead of an account of the monuments of the nation at 
large. In the history of Persia, instead of the contests of 
the Medes and Persians with the empire of Nineveh and 
Babylon, their temporary subjection and subsequent supe- 
riority, we have the wars of Iran and Touran, the contests 
of the frontier province of Chorassan with the Pastoral 
borderers and plunderers of the Turcoman race. The ex- 
ploits of Rustam, the imaginary hero of the remote and 
insulated province of Sigistan, are more celebrated than 
the achievements of those who extended the dominion of 



NOTES. 303 

Persia to the Propontis ; and the wonders of Persepolis and 
Suza are concealed in remote antiquity, or ascribed to the 
labours of the genii, while the progress of fire worship is 
traced with particularity in the northern- and remote pro- 
vince of Aderbijan. The early history of nations is thus 
formed of ill-connected fragments, which, if not entirely 
fabulous in their first origin, have become entirely errone- 
ous in their application ; and researches into the chronolo- 
gy of most nations would probably reduce their pretensions 
to narrower limits, and show how recent is the era of cor- 
rect narrative, though gleams of truth gradually increase 
upon the darkness from a very distant period. 



Note E. Page 18. 



The high antiquity of the Hindoos has received an addi- 
tional shock from some very ingenious observations of Pro- 
fessor Murray : " No nation can be supposed to make very 
great progress in knowledge without writing. Now, it ia 
a fact, established by the publication of the Greek and Ro- 
man Notae, that the Indian cyphers are of European in- 
vention, being abbreviations of the names of numbers in 
the Greek language ; that we receive them from the Arabs 
is a secondary consideration ; they originally made their 
way into India from Europe ; further, it is certain from ocu- 
lar examination, that the Sanscrit character is derived from 
the Chaldee. Though the various alphabets of the na- 
tions of Asia have led some to imagine that they have been 
invented without assistance from the Phoenicians, it now 
appears evidently, that alphabetical writing rose from the 
Phoenicians, and in its eastern course, settled early at Ba- 
bylon, from which it proceeded into India." (Murray's 
History of Languages, vol. ii. p. 226.) 

The identity of the two literatures Murray has shown at 
considerable length, and, though the evidence in such mat- 



304 NOTES. 

ters is seldom so strong as not to admit of considerable 
doubt, it is stronger than any of the advocates of the op- 
posite side of the question have been able to adduce for 
the antiquity of Hindoo literature ; and the consideration 
of the whole subject adds another presumption in favour of 
Chaldea being the centre both of population and of know- 
ledge. The particular branches of study which the Chal- 
deans cultivated, and the proficiency which the Hindoos at- 
tained in the very same studies, with the marks of their 
having received them from an earlier nation ; the Hindoo 
philosophy, which is an advanced stage of the Chaldaic ; 
and the gradual change of language from the borders of 
Chaldea to Hindostan, which is shaded off without any 
abrupt break, lead to the conclusion that, though the learn- 
ing of Chaldea and India might both, in a considerable 
measure, be spontaneous and original, yet, that the latter 
was not without its obligations to the earlier and more ad- 
vanced progress of the former. 



Note F. Page 23. 

In writing the paragraph to which this note refers, the 
following sentence of Hume had escaped my recollection. 
It expresses exactly the same opinion with respect to the 
advantageous situation of Greece, though the variety of 
results that issued from that situation are not deduced. — 
" If we consider the face of the globe, Europe of all the 
four parts of the world, is the most broken by seas, riv- 
ers, and mountains, and Greece of all countries of Europe. 
Hence these regions were naturally divided into several 
distinct governments : and hence the sciences arose in 
Greece ; and Europe has been hitherto the most constant ha- 
bitation of them." The rest of the essay, though containing 
several ingenious observations, is by no means on a level 
with this sentence. " My first observation is, that it is im- 



NOTES. 305 

possible for the arts and sciences to arise at first among 
any people, unless that people enjoy the blessings of a ftee 
government." Notwithstanding this assertion of impossi- 
bility, the arts and sciences did arise among nations who 
never enjoyed the blessings of a free government, namely, 
among the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Hindoos. " Greece," 
Hume well observes, " was a cluster of little principalities, 
which soon became republics; and being united, both by 
their near neighbourhood, and by the ties of the same lan- 
guage and interest, they entered into the closest intercourse 
of commerce and learning. There concurred a happy cli- 
mate, a soil not unfertile, and a most harmonious and com- 
prehensive language; so that every circumstance among 
that people seemed to favour the rise of the arts and scien- 
ces. Each city produced its several artists and philoso- 
phers, who refused to yield the preference to those of the 
neighbouring republics." In this statement, too little pre- 
eminence is assigned to Athens, which alone was hospita- 
ble to famous wits, though other cities might produce them ; 
and Sparta and Thebes, which were under the influence of 
the same general and favourable circumstances, did not ex- 
hibit the effects which are here calculated upon as flowing 
from them: but Athens, while it was the light of Greece, 
cast a dimness by comparison over the other Grecian cities, 
and at once drew to it the talents of the rest of Greece, 
and by the display of its unrivalled attainments, precluded 
the hopes of competition, and the efforts of emulation. 



Note G. Page 41. 

After a correct estimate has been formed of the value of 
Arabian literature by Gibbon, a more exaggerated one, ap- 
parently suggested by the work of Andes' on Universal 
Literature, has gained ground, and been adopted by Gin- 
guene and Sismondi. This brilliant view of the advance- 
26 



306 NOTES. 

ment of the Saracens, is founded chiefly on the titles of 
their works, and of the multitude of their productions, and 
if quantity always insured quality, is no doubt a very just 
one. But we must beware of giving too much credit to 
Arabic denominations, and not suppose that a treatise which 
takes the designation of the ocean of light, or the pearl of 
intelligence, is altogether equal to its title; or that the 
loads of volumes, under which a train of camels bowed 
down, were all filled with intellectual riches, the loss of 
which impoverished the human race. Still the imagina- 
tion of what we have lost has given rise to so much elo- 
quence in M. Sismondi, that, borne away by his oratory, we 
are loth to take to ourselves the consolation which the 
Spanish preacher addressed to his audience : " Be not so 
much cast down, my friends ; perhaps what I am saying is 
not all true." 

"Les plus tristes Reflexions s'attachent a cette longue 
enumeration des noms inconnus pour nous, et qui cependant 
furent illustres ; d'ouvrages ensevelis en manuscrit dans 
quelques bibliotheques poudreuses, et qui cependant influ- 
erent puissamment pendant un temps sur la culture de l'es- 
prithumain. Que reste-t-il de tant de gloire ? Cinq ou 
six hommes seulement sent a portee de visiter les tresors de 
manuscrits Arabes, renfermes a la bibliotheque de l'Escu- 
rial ; quelques centaines d'hommes encore, dissemines dans 
toute l'Europe, se sont mis en etat, par un travail opiniatre, 
de fouiller dans les mines de l'orient ; mais ceux-la n'ob- 
tiennent que peniblement quelques manuscrits rares et ob- 
scurs, et ils ne peuvent s'elever assez haut pour juger toute 
la litterature, dont ils n'atteignent jamais qu'une partie. — 
Cependant les vastes Regions, ou dominait et ou domine 
encore l'lslamisme, sont mortes pour toutes les Sciences. 
Ces riches campagnes de Fez et de Maroc, illustrees il y a 
cinq siecles par tant d'Academies, tant d'Universites, tant 
de bibliotheques, ne sont plus que des deserts de sable br - 
lant que des tyrans disputent a des tigres ; tout le riant et 



NOTES. 30? 

fertile ravage de la Mauritanie, ou le commerce, les arts, et 
l'agriculture s'et.aient eleves a la plus haute prosperity , 
sont aujourd'hui desretraites de corsaires, qui repandent la 
terreur sur les mers, et qui se delassent de leurs travaux 
dans de honteuses debauches, jusqu'a ce que la peste vien- 
ne chaque annee marquer parmi eux des victimes, et ven- 
der l'humanite offensee. L'Egypte est peu a peu englou- 
tie par les Sables qu'elle fertilisait autrefois; la Syrie la 
Palestine sont desolees par des Bedouins errans, moins re- 
doutables encore que le Pacha qui les opprime. Bagdad, 
autrefois le sejour du luxe, dela puissance, et du savoir, est 
ruinee; les universites si celebres de Cufa et de Bassora 
sont fermees ; celles de Samarcande et de Balkh sont egale- 
ment detruites. Dans cette immense etendue de pays. 
deux ou trois fois plus grande que notre Europe, on ne 
trouve plus qu'ignoranee, qu'esclavage, que terreur, et que 
rnort. Peu d'hommes sont en etat de lire quelques-uns des 
Merits de leurs illustres ancetres; peu d'hommes pourraient 
les comprendre; aucun n'est a portee de se les procurer. — 
Cette immense richesse litteraire des Arabes que nous 
n'avons fait qu'entrevoir,n'existe plus dans aucun des Pays 
oil les Arabes et les Musulmans dominent. Ce n'est plus 
la qu'il faut chercher ni la renommee de leurs grands 
hommes, ni leurs ecrits. Ce qui s'en est sauve est tout en- 
tier entre les mains de leurs ennemis, dans les couvens des 
moines, et les bibliotheques des Rois de l'Europe. Et ce- 
pendant ces vastes contrees n'ont point ete conquises ; ce 
n'est point l'etranger qui les a depouillees de leurs riches- 
ses, qui a aneanti leur population, qui a detruit leurs lois, 
leurs mceurs, et leur esprit national. Le poison etait au- 
dedans d'elles, il s'est developpe par lui-meme, et il a tout 
aneanti. 

Qui sait si, dans quelques siecles, cette meme Europe, 
oil le regne des lettres et des sciences est aujourd'hui 
transporte, qui brille d'un si grand eclat, qui juge si bien 
les temps passes, qui compare si bien le regne successif des 



308 



NOTES. 



litteratures et des mceurs antiques, ne sera pas deserte et 
sauvage commes les collines de la Mauritanie, les sables de 
l'Egypte, et les vallees de l'Anatolie ? Qui sait si, dans un 
pays entierement neuf, peut-etre dans les hautes contrees 
d'ou decoule l'Orenoque, et le fleuve des Amazones, peut- 
etre dans cette enceinte jusqu'a ce jour impenetrable des 
montagnes de la Nouvelle Hollande, il ne se formera pas des 
peuples avec d'autres moeurs, d'autres laugues, d'autres pen- 
sees, d'autres religions, des peuples qui renouvelleront en- 
core une fois la race humaine, qui etudieront comrae nous 
les temps passes, et qui, voyant avec etonnement que nous 
avons existe, que nous avons su ce qu'ils sauront, que nous 
avons cm comrae eux a la dureeet a la gloire, plaindront nos 
impuissans efforts, et rappelleront les noms des Newton, des 
Racine, des Tasse, comme exemple de cette vaine lutte de 
l'homme pour atteindre une immortalite de renommee que 
la destinee lui refuse." 

The literature of the Arabs never reached the eminence 
which is here supposed ; and the causes of its decay can 
have no effect upon the literature of Europe. Arabian 
learning rose and fell with the caliphs ; but since European 
literature does not depend upon the patronage of another 
Almamoun and Haroun Alraschid, the works of Averroes 
and of Avicenna may remain neglected, without entailing 
the same fate upon Newton and Racine and Tasso ; we 
must hope that the springs of the Orinoco, of the Ama- 
zons, and the mountains of New Holland, will possess 
sages and historians, without having to wait till Europe has 
become as desert and savage as the hills of Mauritania, the 
sands of Egypt, and the valleys of Anatolia. 

The writings of the Arabians are naturally divided into 
the imaginative and the philosophical ; the first of native 
growth, the second of foreign translation. In the latter, 
they are but the disciples and copyists of the Greeks. — 
They superadded few additional excellencies, and they lost 
many of the peculiar merits of their masters, by the double 



NOTES. 



309 



transfusion which the Greek writings suffered before they 
were intelligible to the sages whom the Caliphs collected 
round them. Their works of imagination belong to two 
periods; and consist of the poetry that was anterior to Ma- 
homet, and the tales that were posterior to the splen- 
dours of the Califat. The poetry is the most vivid, and the 
most freshly taken from nature, that exists in the east ; it 
breathes of the life of the desert. The Arabian tales are 
still superior ; and yield, in brilliancy of imagination, to 
the genius of the Greeks alone. They pnint the cities of 
the east as the Arabian poetry does its deserts ; the orien- 
talists are placed before the eyes in all their indolence and 
voluptuousness ; and the manners of the Mahometan coun- 
tries, from the infidels of China and Hindostan to the statue 
on the Fortunate Islands, which stretched out its hand as 
if to anew world, beyond the ocean of darkness ; are dis- 
played in all the soft light of imagination, and of antiqui- 
ty, with the religions of many ancient nations preserved in 
the form and semblance of magic and superstition. As to 
the inventions of gunpowder, &c. which M. Sismondi in 
one place attributes to them ; in another sentence he more 
justly speaks of them not as inventions, but introductions, 
brought from the remotest east, and which the Arabians 
rather transmitted than profited by them. 



Note H. Page 152. 

The commercial influence of Britain, and the various re- 
sources which it affords for the promotion of religion and 
science, would of itself require a peculiar work, if the 
treatise were in any degree proportioned to the extent and 
variety of the subjects which would naturally fall under its 
review. British merchants have access to every country ; 
and, from the nature of their pursuits, are led to a wide ac- 
quaintance with their physical and moral condition. Their 

26* 



310 NOTES. 

agents are everywhere unsuspected and honoured; the 
communication between them and their principals is un- 
interrupted ; and an unbroken chain of action is maintained, 
by which whatever distinguishes England in morals, or 
knowledge, may be conveyed into the most distant coun- 
tries, and their inhabitants may be made partakers of all 
its attainments, whether civil or religious. The benefits 
which prophecy foretells were to be conferred by a mari- 
time people, upon the cause, and in the advancement of re- 
ligion, were without doubt partially accomplished by the 
advantages which the Jews derived from the Tyrians. — 
But as the Jewish was but the shadow of the christian 
church, so the aid which the Phoenicians could bestow, 
was but a faint emblem of the assistance which will be ren- 
dered by navigation in the latter days ; and the wealth 
which will flow in from commerce will be rendered back in 
part, and be spent in the diffusion of truth, as a tribute of- 
fered up from all lands to the God of the whole earth. 

It were highly to be wished that Mr. Angus should find 
many assistants in carrying his large and enlightened plans 
into effect ; but if only ten could be found who were like- 
minded, we might hail the commencement of their opera- 
tions as the beginning of better days, and look forward to 
the merchants of Britain and America as those who shall 
have an eminent part in the glorious work of evangelizing 
the world. 



Note I. Page 228. 

The only way to effect any great object is, to accelerate 
the train of events which have a natural tendency to pro- 
duce it; and the effectual method of liberating the enslaved 
blacks in America, is that which is pointed out by the great 
changes which are coming over human affairs. The prin- 
ciple which is ultimately destructive of slavery is this, that 



NOTES. 311 

free labour is more valuable than the labour of slaves. In 
the constitution of man, fear is a deterring, but not natu- 
rally an impelling motive ; it is hope alone that animates 
and urges forward. Again, it is not the strength, but the 
intelligence of man which confers its chief value on his ex- 
ertions ; but the slave-holder is compelled to deteriorate 
his labourers by brutalizing them — for the intelligence which 
would make them valuable would also make them free. 
Thus, whenever a fair competition arises between free and 
slave labour, the slave-holder must, in the end, be driven 
out of the market ; and it is only by monopoly that the 
slave system can be maintained. In those changes, then 
which are spreading over the globe, and which, by bring- 
ing its extremes into commercial intercourse, are about to 
destroy all monopolies, we possess the true principles of 
enfranchisement, which will knock off every fetter, and 
will suffer the earth only to be productively tilled by willing 
hands. Time has more than accomplished the prediction 
of Seneca, in disclosing the recesses of the world ; it is 
bringing them into contact ; each part is affected by each, 
and every change circulates through the whole. Sugar 
and slavery were thought concomitants, and slavery cer- 
tainly depends upon the monopoly of sugar ; but the West 
Indian islands will form but specks in the quantity of ground 
brought under sugar cultivation, which is about to spread 
itself over South America, and South-Eastern Asia, and 
the tropical islands of the ocean. The first step in order 
to liberate the negroes of the West Indies is, the bringing 
the sugars of other parts of the world into a fair market, 
and allowing them a free competition. This point, if per- 
severingly insisted on, must certainly be carried ; the Eng- 
lish will not always suffer themselves to be taxed to sup- 
port a system which the great body of the nation abhors ; 
while, on the other hand, we may hope that the planters 
will not always continue blind to their best interests, when- 
ever the exasperation of the moment subsides ; or at least. 



312 



NOTES. 



that some of them, in the christianizing and enfranchising 
of their slaves, will hold forth a happy and successful exam- 
ple that the way of duty is the way of profit, that there 
is no advantage attached to infringing the divine commands* 
and that cruelty and injustice incur the charge of folly as 
well as of guilt. 



Note K. Page 269. 



. In the case of works of beneficence men suddenly pass 
from one extreme to another, and change from an indiffer- 
ence to the end, into an impatience at the length of the way 
which leads to it, and are desirous of over-leaping the in- 
termediate process which is necessary to a successful re- 
sult. There is a succession of steps to be gained. The 
latent benevolence of individuals must be roused from its 
torpid state by those wants which it is desirable should be 
relieved, being strongly and variously brought before them. 
The film must be removed which use and habit spread be- 
fore the mental vision, and which make it less sensible of 
the presence of evils which have long been familiar to it. 
The second step is, to point out the means by which the 
evils may be removed, and to make the antidote as evident 
as the disease, and thus to free the mind from that despair 
of deliverance which is but too apt to succeed to indiffer- 
ence. And though, if these points be gained, several as- 
sistants will be readily found willing to begin operations, 
yet a third requisite is still necessary in a responsible agent, 
to keep the scattered well-wishers united, and to give per- 
manence to their proceedings. 



NOTES. 



313 



Note L. Page 29 1 . 

A new source of influence accrues to England in the 
number of exiled patriots, whom the jealousy of their own 
governments forces to seek a refuge upon her shores. The 
continued contest between the rulers of Europe and their 
subjects must increase the number of fugitives ; and the 
union between the different kings of the continent allows 
no resting-place to the weaker party, till the sea is inter- 
posed between their contention. If unsupported, these 
exiles must be brought within sight of that model of free- 
dom they have sighed for, to starve. England, too, owes 
them a debt of gratitude, for the succours which her pa- 
triots received when exiled in foreign lands during the op- 
pression of the Stuarts. They are unfortunate because 
they have anticipated the improvement of their country, 
and have lived too soon to enjoy freedom at home and in 
peace ; they are the forlorn hope of the mighty host of 
Treemen that will succeed them, they have both the glory 
and the sufferings of being exposed to the brunt of the 
onset. It is the privilege of England that they, who, by 
their sufferings are to benefit future generations, should 
acknowledge her as their benefactress. It would neither 
be politic nor just in her to interfere in the intestine dis- 
putes of foreign states ; but to succour the oppressed, and 
to receive into a safe asylum all who seek her protection. 
is at once her interest and her duty — her present renown, 
and her future aggrandisement. Here the exiles from the 
continent might not only find a refuge, but a school of in- 
struction, and might study those institutions, erected and 
in operation, which they have vainly wished for at home : 
and, in the intervals of their own moral warfare, they may 
witness the example of a people, whose long struggle for 
liberty has ended in its final acquisition, and who now re- 
nose under its shelter, and gather its fruits, 



314 



NOTES. 



Note M. Page 295. 

Christianity will become universal by a threefold influ- 
ence—by the efforts of individuals, by the general disposi- 
tion of the world, and by the agency of the divine influence. 
The first has been viewed in considerable detail ; the second 
has also been indicated, but more slightly, since it is placed 
beyond the reach of individuals ; and the third has been 
altogether omitted, and reserved for separate consideration 

The complicated nature of the subject, which embraces 
the proposal of every variety of human means, and yet 
imperatively demands a divine and supernatural aid, ex- 
cuses, by the vastness of its extent, a partition of that which 
is human and that which is divine. The same means must 
be used for diffusing Christianity as for spreading any other 
system of truths ; but, in addition to these, it has the two- 
fold support of the divine providence and the divine influ- 
ence— tke first, ordering all events to work together for its 
ultimate triumph, and the other disposing the heart to its 
reception. Whatever is successful has many coincident 
causes of success, and the failure of one source of prospe- 
rity is compensated by others ; and, in the inadequacy of 
any single means, and by the helplessness of each individual 
instrument, is evidenced the continual care of providence, 
in preparing beforehand various trains of events, and in 
combining them to effect a single purpose. Each of the 
influences above mentioned will have its share in the ac- 
complishment of the great work. Individuals, though their 
efforts will increase, and be gradually better directed, will 
probably leave much undone ; their zeal will never be equal 
to their strength, nor their knowledge to their zeal. The 
great events about to take place, from the developement of 
society, both in Europe and in America, may, in some mea- 
sure, supply their lack of service, and greatly contribute to 
advancing true religion, but doubtless will leave much room 



NOTES. 315 

for the immediate manifestation of a divine influence upon 
the minds of men, and a sudden success shall attend the 
cause of truth, as in the times of primitive Christianity, and 
during the reformation, when, like the first rumour of vic- 
tory, the glad tidings of salvation spread on every side with 
incredible swiftness, and seemed to outstrip the messen- 
gers who were commissioned to proclaim them. 



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